If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

 

 

I'm collecting proverbs expressing the futility of counterfactual hypotheses. Every language (except Mandarin?) seems to have such proverbs.

 

I would be very grateful for corrections and for more examples, preferably pairs of original + translation. Thanks!

 

 

English

o   If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

o   If ifs and ans were pots and pans, there'd be no work for tinkers' hands.

o   If frogs had wings, and snakes had hair,
And automobiles flew through the air,
If a watermelon grew on a huckleberry vine,
Then we'd have winter in the summertime
.

 

Esperanto

o   Se la ĉielo falus al tero, birdokapto estus facila afero.
(If the sky fell down, it would be easy to catch birds.)

 

French

o   Avec des si on mettrait Paris en bouteille.
(With 'if's one would put Paris in a bottle.)

 

o   Si la mer bouillait, il y aurait bien des poissons de cuits. (Haiti)
(If the sea were boiling, there would be plenty of cooked fish.)

 

German

o   Wenn dasWörtchen wenn nicht r, wär mein Vater Millionär.
(If not for the little word 'if', my father would have been a millionaire.)

 

Polish

o   Gdyby ciocia miała wąsy, byłaby wujaszkiem.
(If the aunt had a mustache, she would have been an uncle.)

 

Russian

o   Если б не мороз,t то овес бы до неба дорос
(If not for the frost, the oats would grow to the sky.)

 

o   Если бы мы «если» поставили на «если», то бы до неба доле
(If we had stacked 'if' on 'if', we could have climbed to heaven.)

 

Dutch

o   As is verbrande turf.
(Ash is burnt peat, where 'as' stands for 'als', the Dutch 'if'.)

 

o   Als mijn oom tieten had, dan was het mijn tante.
(If my uncle had tits, he would be my aunt.)

 

Hebrew

o   אילו לסבתא היו גלגלים, היא היתה אוטובוס.
(If grandmother had wheels, she would have been a bus.)