Learn English – the Proverb or Quotation

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Is there a proverb or quote in English that has similarity with this one:

"If the big two ox fight then the rubble gets the brunt."

This is a Maldivian idiom that explains how juniors get affected when elders quarrel or perhaps, when two ministers fight public gets the brunt etc.

Best Answer

Elizabeth Knowles, Little Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs (2009) doesn't have any relevant proverbs that are native to English, but it does list a closely related proverb, drawn from Swahili:

When elephants fight, it is the grass that gets hurt.

the weak are likely to suffer as a result of the conflicts o the strong and powerful; African proverb (Swahili)

A somewhat similar proverb pointing to the idea that the actual combatants aren't the only ones injured in a fight is this one from Bartlett Whiting, Early American Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases (1977):

When the members quarrel, the whole body must suffer.

And Wolfgang Mieder, The Prentice-Hall Encyclopedia of World Proverbs (1986) offers this proverb to sum up the implications of the preceding two:

Innocence is no protection. English

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