Thread Instead of bumper stickers, Iranians paint phrases on their cars. Here are some of my favorites:

"Don't honk, the chicks are sleeping"

"Commiting crimes isn't worth your mother's tears"

"Whoever I tied my heart to ended up asking me for telephone credits"

(In Iran, many sim cards are on a pay as you go basis. For a time people would try to sweet talk someone into buying them credits by claiming they were running out but wanted to talk).

"Dying is in God's hands, a [Kia] Pride is [simply] the means"

(The Kia Pride is famous for being Iran's cheapest and most unsafe car)

"Dying is in God's hands, [your wife] is [simply] the means"

(Iranian women are famous for being headstrong and assertive)

This joke is a contextual play on words: it says "Vāntāfeh" which is a contraction of 'Vānet' (pickup truck) and '[Hyundai] Santa Fe' (considered a nice car)

A bit of irony: "I'm not one to write something on the back of my car"

"Tell those who wear fashionable clothing
your last outfit is the burial shroud"

"Death where are you? For living killed me!"

"If only youth had a second edition"

(In Persian, the word for 'second edition' is 'al-mosana, meaning 'the second,' which is what documents are called when they are replaced. One might say, "I lost my citizenship documents, so I got an al-mosana.')

"You don't need a rock to break a heart"

Literally: to break the glass (chalice) of the heart, it's a poetic metaphor.

"May we remember, if we grow lonely
not to seek love from any wretch"

"Less kids, more wives"

"O God, I owe you one death, and you owe me a thousand wishes/dreams

Either take what I owe you or give me what you owe."

"For the sake of [Imam Ali], whatever you are, be a [righteous person]"

"O Lord, don't bring a day when the thugs are dishonored
and the pretty boys enter the Winehouse glass in hand"

"Everyone fears death, I fear a disloyal friend"

(In Iran state institutions play less of a role in your life than in the West and that role is filled by friends and family. Many legal matters are settled independently, so a fake friend can be dangerous.)

"A disloyal friend is no less than an enemy to me
I'll sacrifice my head to the enemy that has a hint of loyalty"

"There's no room on my back, please stab me in the front!"

"I learned that a friend's envy is more dangerous than a rival's rivalry"

"He turned to dirt, whoever lived in this dirt,
what does the dirt know of who is in this dirt?"

"If you don't have money, your local butcher won't even sell you a heart, let alone the one you love. That's how it is my friend"

"Buying used things is an excuse
I search the streets looking for you"

"If only your glance had subtitles"

"Blessed be the day when my name is saved in your moms phone as 'My Dear Son in Law'"

"Sorry my back is facing you"

"A friend with no tricks? Mom"

The last one is quite common, so much that it's become a cliche. Here's a twist, "A friend with no tricks? Mother in law"

"[Even] if you're the world's king,
you're a but beggar [in the presence of] your mother"

"The result of going to a [bad] university"

(In Persian it says 'dāneshgāh āzād,' which are the private, tuition-based universities catering to students who cannot make it to the competitive, public universities. Some are diploma factories.)

"The result of quitting school" and

"The result of quitting university"

"The result of getting a bachelors"

(Lamenting high unemployment rates and nepotism, most of these cars are used for working-class jobs)

"Everyone is looking for a lover, I'm looking for freight,
and I have a master's degree from Shahid Beheshti [University]..."

"May my father's soul be happy, for he told my teacher,
'Don't teach my child anything but to love'"

"O instrument, cry slowly,
so a passerby doesn't learn of my secret"

From Rumi's Masnavi:

"Humanity's ladder is a selfish place,
and this ladder's fate is to fall on its face.
Stupider are the ones climbing to the top,
for their bones will break the hardest when they drop."

"When values change [avaz mīshavand]
wretched people [avazī hā] become valuable."

This is a play on words with 'avaz' (change) and 'avazī' (a bad person, whose values quickly change), 'arzesh' (values, in terms of morality) and 'arzesh' (monetary or social value).

Attributed to Rumi:

"The word and it's material items are nothing,
O nothing! Don't become consumed by nothing for nothing"

"In a time when a sixteen-year-old boy with forty kilos of weight and a fancy car becomes a '[real] man' of [a girl's] dreams, I would rather not be a [real] man..."

"O God I need your prayers"

Mohtāj means 'in need,' but 'tāj' also means 'crown,' hence the crown replacing 'tāj.'

Doā means 'prayer' but 'do' means two, hence the Persian two replacing two letters.

"Let's not leave anything in nature except our footsteps and let's not take anything but photos"

(As more Iranians have the disposable income to travel internally, there has been a problem with urbanites littering in rural areas unequipped with the infrastructure to handle it.)

"Insured by Imam Reza"

Ali ibn Musa al-Ridha is the 8th Shia Imam buried in Mashhad (he's the patron saint of Iran, if you will).

This one is a play on words, it reads:

"Nāzam be nāz-e kasī
keh beh nāzesh nanāzad"

Nazidan can mean to show love, take pride in, or boast about. It translates to:

"I love the caring of a person
who doesn't boast about their caring."

An Arabic one (not in Iran): "I'm in a hurry, I have ice cream"

Arabic: "If you see everything nice, know you're drunk"

Arabic: "O Lord, I want get married"

Arabic: "Don't honk behind me, I see you in the mirror"

Arabic: "I was born without a thing, and I'll leave without a thing"

"My eyes feel like a bus, [many] people have descend from them"

When Arabs are disappointed by someone they were once fond of, they say, "He fell [descended] from my eye" (and people are always descending from a bus).

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