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 wär, 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.)