Nasreddin Quotes

27 Sourced Quotes

Seeing something glittering in the gutter, Nasrudin ran to pick it up. It was a metal mirror. Looking at it closely, he saw his face reflected in it:
No wonder it was thrown away – nothing as ugly as this could possibly appeal to anyone. The fault is in me, for I picked it up without reasoning that it must be something unpleasant.

Nasreddin
While visiting a friend in Turkey:
I was just admiring your sky, and wondering at the mastery of your sky-painters. They have made a perfect copy of the stars we have back home.

Nasreddin
Man: All true devotees wear a beard. Show me a thick and lustrous, beard and I'll show you a true believer!
Nasrudin: My goat has a beard far bushier and longer than yours. Does that mean he is a better Muslim than you?

Nasreddin
Man: How often do you shave?
Nasreddin: Twenty or thirty times a day
Man: You must be a freak!
Nasreddin: No, I'm only a barber.

Nasreddin
Nasrudin, starving with hunger went to a cafe and started to fill his mouth with food, using both hands:
Man: Why eat with two hands, Mulla?
Nasrudin: Because I haven't got three.

Nasreddin
Man: When will the end of the world come?
Nasreddin: Which end of the world?
Man: Well, how many are there?
Nasreddin: Two, the Greater and the Lesser. If my wife dies, that is the Lesser End of the World. But if I die - that is the Greater End of the World.

Nasreddin
Nasreddin: My trouble is that I can't remember anything.
Psychologist: When did this start?
Nasreddin: When did what start?

Nasreddin
Nasreddin went into a bank with a cheque to cash:
Clerk: Can you identify yourself?
[Nasreddin took out a mirror and peered into it.]
Nasreddin: Yes, that's me all right.

Nasreddin
Man: How are you getting on with that memory training course you got by correspondence, Mulla?
Nasreddin: I'm improving. Now I can sometimes remember that I have forgotten something.

Nasreddin
After being to a mannequin parade:
It's a complete swindle! They show you the women - and then try to sell you the clothes!

Nasreddin
Monk: I am so detached that I never think of myself, only of others.
Nasreddin: I am so objective that I can look at myself as if I were another person; so I can afford to think of myself.

Nasreddin
If I knew what two and two were - I would say Four!

Nasreddin
If I survive this life without dying, I'll be surprised.

Nasreddin
Man: Is it possible for a hundred-year-old man to have a child?
Nasreddin: Yes, providing that he has an accomplice, say, in the twenties or thirties.

Nasreddin
Man: I want to borrow your donkey.
Nasreddin: I am sorry, but I have already lent it out.

[The donkey brayed; the sound came from Nasreddin's stable.]

Man: But I can hear the donkey, in there!
Nasreddin: A man who believes the word of a donkey in preference to my word does not deserve to be lent anything.

Nasreddin
Man: Why are you sitting at the crossroads?
Nasreddin: One day something will happen here, and a crowd will gather. When that comes about, I may not be able to get close enough so I'm putting in my time now.

Nasreddin
Man: Why do you always answer a question with another question?
Nasreddin: Do I?

Nasreddin
Man: How old are you, Mulla?
Nasreddin: Forty.
Man: But you said the same last time I asked you, two years ago!
Nasreddin: Yes, I always stand by what I have said.

Nasreddin
Nasrudin: Give me some money.
Rich Man: Why?
Nasrudin: I want to buy ... an elephant.
Rich Man: If you have no money, you can't afford to keep an elephant.
Nasrudin: I came here to get money, not advice.

Nasreddin
Man: I hear that you have some vinegar which is forty years old. Will
you give me some?
Nasreddin: Certainly not. It would not be forty years old if I kept giving it away, would it?

Nasreddin
Man: Nasreddin, your donkey has been lost.
Nasreddin: Thank goodness I was not on the donkey at the time, or I would be lost too.

Nasreddin
Nasreddin: The moon is more useful than the sun.
Man: Why?
Nasreddin: Because at night we need the light more.

Nasreddin
Nasreddin: I can see in the dark.
Man: That may be so. But if it is true, why do you sometimes carry a candle at night?
Nasreddin: To prevent other people from bumping into me.

Nasreddin
Customs Officer: You can tell me now, Nasrudin... Whatever was it that you were smuggling, when we could never catch you out?
Nasreddin: Donkeys.
Nasreddin used to take a donkey across a frontier every day, with the panniers loaded with straw. Since he admitted to being a smuggler when he trudged home every night, the frontier guards searched him again and again. They searched his person, staffed the straw, steeped it in water, even burned it from time to time. This dialogue takes place when one of the officers met him years later.

Nasreddin
At dinner time, Nasreddin finds no meat on the table. He asks his wife:
Nasreddin: What happened to the meat?
Nasreddin's Wife: The cat ate it.

[Nasreddin breezes into the kitchen, puts the cat on the scales, and discovers the cat to be weighing three pounds.]

Nasreddin: If the meat I brought home weighed three pounds, then, where is the cat? And, if this happens to be the cat, then what happened to the meat?

Nasreddin
Nasreddin's Wife: In our society, they treat us as if women have no names of their own—you are always so-and-so's wife.
Nasreddin: You are right, my dear wife. From now on, whenever they ask me what my name is, I'll say 'I'm the husband of the wife of Nasreddin.'

Nasreddin
Man: Well, Nasreddin. I know you lose your only donkey. Life may be difficult without it. But, don't be too sad brother.
Nasreddin: Do I look sad?
Man: Yes, you look very sad. You looked much sadder than you did when your wife died.
Nasreddin: At that time you all tried to cheer me up by saying 'Don't be too sad, my brother Nasreddin. We'll get you a new wife.' But now you see, nobody offers me a donkey to replace my lost one.

Nasreddin