W

Walls have ears.

Want of wit is worse than want of wealth.

"We always advance," says the tortoise.

We are living in a time when people are after money.

We may give advice, but we cannot give conduct.

We plant walnuts and pears for our heirs.

We soon believe what we desire.

Wealth and success don't just come to a man on a silver platter.

Wealth can be both a friend and an enemy to a man.*

Well is, that well does.

What cannot be cured must be endured.

What is the use of a gold basin to a person coughing up blood? [Money does not always help.]

What makes a tree beautiful is its leaves.

What news do you have beside bad news?

What one thousand scholars may not know, one wise man may know.

What the elder sister wears, the younger sister wants to wear also.

What the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve over.

What the eye sees the heart wants. [We soon believe what we desire.]

What we first learn, we best can.

What will be, will be.

Whatever the thoughts of the dervish, so are his actions.

When a drunkard gets sober, he starts thinking. [Drunken days have their tomorrows.]

When a man grows angry, his reason rides out.

When a pine tree falls, men gather around both with and without axes. [People like to profit by or enjoy a great man's fall.]

When fortune smiles, embrace her. [Cf. When fortune knocks, open the door (German, Italian).]

When in Rome, do as the Romans (do).

When one door shuts, another opens.

When the belly is full, the bones would be at rest.

When the cat is away, the mice will play.

When the heart is a fire, some sparks will fly out of the mouth.

When the horse dies, the foal takes its place.

When the well is full, it will run over.

When the wine is in, the wit is out.

When you are well hold yourself so.

When you tell the truth, have one foot in the stirrup.

Where there is carcass, there are also crows.

Who desires the rose must also consent to the thorns.

Who enters the Turkish bath will sweat. [A Turkish bath, hamam, is the Islamic variant of the Roman bath, steambath or sauna. So the air in a Turkish bath air is hot and hot, and may be steamy too.]

Who fears the sparrows must not sow millet.

Who fears the sparrows must not sow millet.

Who gossips to you will gossip about you.

Who has a fair wife, needs more than two eyes.

Who has never been burned in the sun won't know the value of a shadow.

Who has no beard has no authority. [Joke?]

Who has no intention to pray has no ears for the call to prayer.

Who is in fault suspects everybody.

Who keeps company with the wolf, will learn to howl.

Who loves roses will endure the thorns.

Who nothing has shall nothing save.

Who sets off on a journey without any provisions, will have his both eyes on another's bag.

Who takes the devil for a comrade, a bad comrade has he. [The Koran]

Who trusts to rotten boughs, may fall.

Wholesome and poisonous herbs grow in the same garden.

Why keep a cow when you can buy milk?

Wife and children are bills of charges.

With foxes one must play the fox.

With haste catch a fly.

With patience the cocoon of the moth on the mulberry leaf is made into a silk gown.*

With talking the cheese ship won't move.

Without wisdom wealth is worthless.

Words are but wind, but seeing's believing.

Work is not his who does it, but his who makes others do it.

Work is the mirror of a person, don't look at mere words.

Worse things happen at sea.

Y

You sometimes come back to your first love.*

You can tell a lion from where he dwells. – You can tell what kind of a lion he is by his lair. [You learn a lot about a person if you see how well his home is kept.]

You can tell that the customer wants a shroud just by looking at his face.

You cannot get blood out of a stone.

You cannot know the wine by the cask [or barrel].

You cannot lose what you never had.

You cannot make a crab walk straight.

You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

You cannot please everyone.

You cannot pluck roses without fear of thorns, nor enjoy a fair wife without danger of horns.

You can't expect a good thing to go on for ever.

You can't make a spoon out of just any wood. [It takes the right person and/or materials to do a job right.]

You don't wash blood away with blood but with water.

You may have too much of a good thing.

You may visit your aunt, but not very frequently.

You must lose a fly to catch a trout.

You must not expect old heads on young shoulders.

You never know till you have tried.

You reap where you have sown.

You should make sure that you are perfect before you make fun of the imperfections of others.

Young men's knocks old men feel.

Your work of the day is your sleep [i.e. dream at night].