- English translation
Better plain bread every day than fine bread that keeps running out.
- Literal wording
Coarse bran flour that lasts, and not fine white flour that is cut off.
- Meaning and lesson
The saying ranks a humble provision that never fails above a superior one that comes only now and then. Coarse branny flour and the finest white flour stand for the bread baked from each, so the choice is between rough bread daily and fine bread that is cut off, available only intermittently.
More broadly, it prizes reliability over occasional excellence. A modest income, supply, or arrangement that can be counted on is judged wiser than a splendid one that arrives sporadically, leaving gaps of want between its appearances.
- When it is used
Fits moments of weighing a plain but dependable option against a finer one that comes irregularly or may stop, such as advising someone to keep a steady modest livelihood instead of chasing occasional richer gains.
- Register
- colloquial
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
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