Advertisement

The quote appears in an LA Times story about the Westlake basketball team. It is a pull-quote on the corporate responsibility page of TOMS. It’s in a book about “teaching entrepreneurship to postgraduates.” It is identified as “Kenyan” in a book called Glorious & Free; it is identified as a saying of “Botswanan grandmothers” in a novel by Jodi Picoult. It is the quote of the day on the Facebook page of a Portland bakery called Pip’s Original Doughnuts. And on and on and on.

In my passing experience, the “~African Proverb” type of wisdom—extremely general, with a veneer of authenticity borrowed from the continent where human life originated—seems particularly popular among tech types, NGO types, techy NGO types, Ted Talks and evangelical Christians; this rough gesture is frequently made on Instagram and Pinterest, as well.

Advertisement

An image search pulls up the visual equivalent of the above situation:

Advertisement

There are pages and pages of more:

Advertisement

Well, if you happen to have any leads of the origin of this popular African proverb, my inbox is open. Otherwise, a good rule of thumb is—if you hear a gripping “African proverb” in a TED Talk or an episode of 30 Rock, or even just from a person who is comfortable saying “African proverb” with a straight face, you might remember:

Advertisement

Images via screenshot, Shutterstock/Bobby Finger