“A student does not know what it means to be a master, but a master remembers what it was to be a student.”
Experience teaches understanding that inexperience cannot yet grasp; the wise stay patient with beginners.
— Traditional Gambia Wisdom, Gambia
Source: Traditional Gambia proverb (Mandinka), public-domain oral tradition
More Proverbs from Gambia
If a donkey kicks you and you kick back, you are both donkeys.
Responding to foolishness with more foolishness only lowers you to the same level.
Traditional Gambia Wisdom
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An adult squatting down sees farther than a child standing on top of a tree.
Age and experience often perceive more than youth and height alone.
Traditional Gambia Wisdom
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A fly that has no one to advise it follows the corpse into the grave.
Those who refuse guidance can be led straight into their own ruin.
Traditional Gambia Wisdom
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Giant silk-cotton trees grow out of very tiny seeds.
Great things have humble beginnings; a small start can grow into something immense.
Traditional Gambia Wisdom
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However black a cow is, its milk is always white.
A person's outward appearance does not determine the goodness of what they produce.
Traditional Gambia Wisdom
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No matter how long a log stays in the water, it will never become a crocodile.
Similar circumstances do not change something's fundamental nature.
Traditional Gambia Wisdom
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