English · Proverb Candidate

a friend cannot be known in prosperity nor an enemy be hidden in adversity

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

You can't truly know someone's intentions when things are going well

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Không thể biết rõ ý định của ai khi mọi việc đều tốt đẹp

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Examples

A friend cannot be known in prosperity nor an enemy be hidden in adversity, which is why I'm cautious around new acquaintances.

AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)

Sources & notes

Listed on English Wikiquote “English proverbs” (CC BY-SA 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-31). Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “a friend cannot be known in prosperity nor an enemy be hidden in adversity” mean?

You can't truly know someone's intentions when things are going well

Is “a friend cannot be known in prosperity nor an enemy be hidden in adversity” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.

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