- English translation
Better to sleep at ease on hard, broken earth than toss on a soft pillow and bed.
- Literal wording
Any sleep on the plowed clods that is restful is better than a pillow and a mattress.
- Meaning and lesson
The saying weighs inner calm against outward comfort and finds calm far more valuable. Lying on the rough clods of freshly plowed earth hurts the body, yet if the mind is untroubled, that rest beats a soft pillow and mattress. The worry of the soft-bed sleeper is implied by the contrast, not stated.
In practice it favors a settled mind over physical ease. A hard, uncomfortable situation that leaves a person mentally at rest is treated as preferable to a soft, well-furnished one that leaves the mind restless and uneasy.
- When it is used
Use it to defend a modest or physically uncomfortable situation that brings calm, when it is set against a more comfortable option that would cost a person peace of mind. It works as gentle advice to others or as a way of justifying one's own choice.
- Register
- colloquial
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
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