اذا حلف فيك الرجل بت نعس و اذا حلف فيك النساء بت فيق If men swear to harm you, sleep through the night, but if women swear to harm you, stay awake

  This Moroccan proverb is from the Wit and Wisdom of Morocco by Edward Westermack:

اذا حلف فيك الرجل بت نعس و اذا حلف فيك النساء بت فيق
(ida halfu feek r-rajul bat na'as wa ida halfu feek an-nisa' bat fayeq)
Literal meaning: if men swear to harm you, sleep through the night, but if women swear to harm you, stay awake.
Meaning: women are more dangerous than men, as in the Kipling poem: "the female of the species is more deadly than the male"

أﻣﻞ إﺑﻠﻴﺲ ﺑﺎﻟﺠﻨﺔ

From the Art of Speech by Hussein Maxos:

  أﻣﻞ إﺑﻠﻴﺲ ﺑﺎﻟﺠﻨﺔ
(amal eeblees biljinna)
Literal meaning: hope of the devil in heaven
Meaning: describes something impossible. An equivalent might be "A snowball's chance in hell"

اذا اراد ربنا هلاك نملة انبت لها اجنحة

An Arabic proverb from John Lewis Burckhardt’s book The Manners And Customs Of The Modern Egyptians.


  اذا اراد ربنا هلاك نملة انبت لها اجنحة
Literal meaning: If God proposes the destruction of an ant he allows her to grow wings. 
Meaning: The sudden elevation of persons to stations above their means or capacities, may often cause their ruin (a little like the biblical proverb "pride goes before the fall" 


You can download a free pdf of the book here. For more information on  John Lewis Burckhardt see his wikipedia page.


Note: This book was published in the 19th century, so the proverbs I quote may no longer be used. If a proverb is out date, comment below.

إِيشْ مَا طَبَخِت الرَّعْنَة بِيَاكْلُهْ جُوزْهَاالأَعْمَى

An Egyptian proverb from http://www.egyptianarabic.com:


إِيشْ مَا طَبَخِت الرَّعْنَة بِيَاكْلُهْ جُوزْهَاالأَعْمَى
(aish ma Tabakhat ir-ra'ana biyakul goozha il-'ama)
Literal meaning: Whatever the crazy wife cooks her blind husband will eat.
Meaning: To get away with bad behavior, as in the English saying "To get away with murder"

إن كان صاحبك عسل, لا تلحسه كله

This is an Omani proverb from Ayna on the englishsabla.com forums.  


إن كان صاحبك عسل, لا تلحسه كله 
(inna kana Sahebuk 'asel la telehasa kuluhu)
Literal meaning:If your friend was honey, don't lick him all up
Meaning: if a person is nice to you, don't take advantage of that or take his kindness for granted. I can't think of any English equivalent. If you can, leave your suggestions in the comments.


If you have any proverbs to suggest, write them in the comments below. 

الهريبه تلتين المراجل و إن صحت المراجل كلها

This proverb is from James Richard Jewett's Arabic proverbs and proverbial phrases 




.الهريبه تلتين المراجل و إن صحت المراجل كلها
(ilharebhi telatan ilmaraajal wa inna sahhit ilmaraajal kuluha)

Literal Meaning: Running is two-thirds of courage, and if it succeeds it is all of courage.
Meaning: discretion is the better part of valor.




This morning I found two books  of Arabic proverbs in the public domain section of Google books: 
The manners and customs of the modern Egyptians by John Lewis Burckhardt and  Arabic proverbs and proverbial 
phrases
 by James Richard Jewett.

Both of these books were written in the late 19th century
 so I don't know if the proverbs are still in use. If you have any info 
on this, comment below. Of the two, Burckhardt is the more well known,
 and I plan to talk about him, but right now I want to  talk about Jewett.

 I like his book because it is the first I've seen about Syrian proverbs, 
and  I like the scholarly way the entries are laid out, with the vowels 
and verb tenses explained and series of meticulous scholarly citations.
 Not only do I feel more erudite after reading this for five minutes, 
but I can just picture him sitting next to a tent somewhere 

in the Syrian desert, surrounded by mountains of reference books.

Apparently  he was in Syria for some reason when he started collecting
 proverbs from his friends. He then wrote them up for his dissertation. 
This is pretty much all I could find out because he has no internet presence

 whatsoever. Granted, he has probably been dead  for seventy years,
 but people who have dead for thousands of years have wikipedia pages, 
and if he is the James Richard Jewett the Harvard Arabic Chair is named for,

 he must  have been well known is his time. Does anyone know anything about him? 

آدي السما و آدي الأرض

This Egyptian proverb is courtesy of the writer of http://egyptiannerdpopcorn.blogspot.com/

آدي السما  و آدي الأرض

(adee el sama w adee el ard)

Literal meaning: Here is the sky, and here is the earth.

Meaning:  You can look all you want, but what you want doesn't exist.

It is an Egyptian proverb said to people who ask for something impossible, a little like "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride."