Nepali proverbs about animals: dogs, tigers, elephants and more

The best-known of the group, and the English equivalent is nearly word for word: a barking dog seldom bites. People who make the most noise are usually the least dangerous.

The same idea, sharpened. The dog that barks keeps on barking, while the one that really bites lies quietly asleep. Watch the quiet ones.

This one is advice rather than observation. The dog goes on barking and the elephant goes on walking. When small people try to stop you, keep moving.

A dog that has been hit with a burning ember is afraid even of lightning. Someone who has been burned once becomes jumpy about anything that looks like it, the nearest English cousin being "once bitten, twice shy".

The washerman's dog belongs neither to the house nor to the riverbank. It is usually used for someone who has ended up with no real place anywhere, ignored by both sides.

An old tiger does not stop hunting. The collection reads it as: if something is in your nature, you will never fully give it up.

A thin tiger does not turn into a cat. Real character and ability do not change just because circumstances got worse. It is a good partner to the previous proverb.

To a frightened person even a tree stump looks like a tiger. Fear invents threats that are not there.

The tiger in the forest may or may not eat you, but the tiger in your mind certainly will. The collection explains it as a warning against anxiety and imagining the worst. It is a close relative of the stump proverb above.

When a tiger dies it lives on in its skin, and when a person dies they live on by their name. The saying is about reputation: what you did is what is left.

A tiger at home, a cat in the forest. It is a dig at someone who is bold in familiar, safe places and timid out in the world. Others read it the other way round, about people who are meek in public and fierce in private. The wording supports both, so the context matters.

Cumin in the elephant's mouth. A tiny amount against a huge need, so nowhere near enough. The English equivalent is "a drop in the ocean".

The elephant went through, but the tail got stuck. The hard part is done and a small detail is blocking everything.

A coconut in a monkey's hands. Something fragile or valuable has landed with someone who has no idea what to do with it and will probably wreck it.

The crow calls the cuckoo black. The cuckoo's song is famously sweet, and the crow's own colour is no better. This is about people who criticise a fault they have themselves.

The mouse eats the rice, and the frog is the one that gets hurt. Someone innocent pays for another's wrongdoing.

When the jackal howls, a chicken goes missing. The collection reads it as being rightly afraid because of something that happened before. A sign you have learned to read is a reason to be careful.