Boston University
African Studies Center
270 Bay State Road
Boston, Massachusetts 02215
(617) 353-3673
email: africa@bu.edu
www.bu.edu/africa

 

 

PROVERBS FROM
GHANA

  1. A child who asks questions does not become a fool.

  2. Knowledge is like a baobab tree; no one can encompass it with their hands.

  3. Let not what you cannot do tear you from what you can do.

  4. You must act as if it is impossible to fail.

  5. The ruin of a nation begins in the homes of its people.

  6. Two men in a burning house must not stop to argue.

  7. Do not follow the path. Go where there is no path to begin a trail.

  8. If you are on the road to nowhere, find another road.

  9. When you are sitting in your own house, you don’t learn anything. You must get out of your house to learn.

  10. It is a child who has never traveled who says that only his mother prepares tasty meals.

  11. If you’ve not been on someone else’s farm, you cannot say that you’re the only true farmer.

  12. Nobody can prepare for the harmattan* by drinking plenty of water.

  13. It is the human being that counts. I call gold; it does not answer. I call cloth; it does not answer. It is the human being that counts.

Compiled with help from Max Amoh and Vera Johnson

*Harmattan is the season of the dry wind that comes from the desert