Proverb: Sejde z očí, sejde z mysli

Sejde z očí, sejde z mysli is the Czech for "out of sight, out of mind" — literally "(it) goes away from the eyes, (it) goes away from the mind." In just four words repeated in a tidy parallel, it packs three of the most rewarding pieces of Czech grammar: a prefixed perfective verb used as a timeless truth, the preposition z demanding the genitive, and the noun oko ("eye") with its archaic dual declension. Reading it slowly is a small masterclass.

The text and its shape

Sejde z očí, sejde z mysli.

The proverb is built on parallelism: the verb sejde + the preposition z + a genitive noun, stated twice, with only the final noun changing (očí → mysli). The structure mirrors its meaning — the first half is the cause (vanishing from sight), the second is the effect (vanishing from the mind), and the matching rhythm welds them together.

It is also built on ellipsis. There is no expressed subject. Czech lets you leave the subject unstated when it is a vague "it" / "whatever," much as English "out of sight, out of mind" has no subject either. You can mentally supply co sejde z očí, sejde z mysli ("what goes from the eyes goes from the mind") or to ("that"), but the bare version is the idiom.

Word by word

Grammar in action 1: the verb sejít

Sejde is the third-person singular of sejít, a verb made of the prefix s- ("down, off, away") plus the motion verb jít ("to go"). The prefix changes both the meaning and the aspect: bare jít is imperfective ("to go, to be going"), but adding s- makes a complete, bounded action — sejít is perfective, "to go down / to come off / to disappear." Here the sense is "to go away, to vanish."

The prefix s- is one of the workhorse Czech verbal prefixes; for the full inventory of how prefixes create perfectives, see perfective by prefix. It carries a directional core of "down / off the surface": sejít z kopce ("to come down the hill"), barva sešla ("the paint came off").

Grammar in action 2: a perfective present that is a general truth

Here is the subtle point that catches English speakers. Sejde has a present-tense ending, but the verb is perfective — and a Czech perfective in the present does not describe something happening now. Normally it points to the future: sejdu z kopce means "I will come down the hill," not "I am coming down." This is a core fact of the language, treated in full on perfective present is future.

So why does the proverb feel timeless rather than future? Because proverbs exploit a second use of the perfective present: stating a general truth or a typical, repeatable outcome. "Whatever leaves your eyes (will inevitably) leave your mind" — the perfective conveys the completedness and certainty of the result, and that reads as a law of life rather than a single future event. English would use a plain present ("out of sight, out of mind"); Czech reaches for the perfective precisely to stress the inevitable, finished result.

Grammar in action 3: z + genitive

The preposition z (and its vocalized variant ze before awkward clusters) means "from, out of" and always governs the genitive case. This is why both nouns appear in genitive form: z očí ("from the eyes"), z mysli ("from the mind"). You will use z constantly to express origin, source, and motion out of something.

For the wider family of genitive prepositions — z, do, od, bez, u and the rest — see genitive prepositions.

Grammar in action 4: očí, the dual remnant

The word oko ("eye") is a small grammatical museum. Old Czech had a third number, the dual, used specifically for things that come in pairs — eyes, ears, hands, legs. The dual mostly vanished, but it left fossilized forms behind in exactly these paired body parts. Oko keeps a special "eyes" plural:

Two cells are pure dual: the genitive plural očí (which is what the proverb uses, after z) and the instrumental očima ("with the eyes"), which ends in the old dual -ma rather than the regular -y you would expect. A learner who declined oko like an ordinary neuter would produce ok in the genitive plural — wrong; it must be očí.

The same dual pattern shows up in uši ("ears"), ruce ("hands"), and nohy ("legs"). The whole set is collected on dual remnants and body-part duals.

Grammar in action 5: mysl, a kost-type feminine

The final word, mysl ("mind"), is a feminine noun ending in a soft consonant — the kost declension type. Its genitive singular (the form after z) is mysli. The kost-type is the one where the genitive, dative, and locative singular all end in -i, so z mysli ("from the mind"), k mysli ("toward the mind"), and o mysli ("about the mind") look alike. The full paradigm is on the kost type.

Note the proverb's neat asymmetry: očí is a plural genitive (the eyes, a pair), while mysli is a singular genitive (one mind). The parallel sound hides a difference in number — which is exactly the kind of thing native speakers feel but never consciously notice.

When to use this proverb

You reach for Sejde z očí, sejde z mysli to comment on how absence breeds forgetting — a friend who moved away and is rarely thought of, an item put in a drawer and forgotten, a worry that fades once it is no longer in front of you. It can be wistful (about a fading friendship) or matter-of-fact (about how people stop caring once something is out of view).

Common mistakes

Declining oko like a regular neuter in the genitive plural:

Putting the noun after z into the wrong case (e.g. accusative instead of genitive):

Reading the perfective present sejde as "is going" right now:

Using the regular -y instrumental for the dual očima: