- English translation
One locust held in your hand beats a thousand still flying overhead.
- Literal wording
A locust in the palm, and not a thousand in the air.
- Meaning and lesson
The saying weighs a small gain that is already secured against a far larger one that remains out of reach. It favors the modest thing you actually hold over an impressive quantity you can only watch, since the distant abundance may never become yours at all.
In practice it counsels caution and contentment: do not abandon a sure, if minor, advantage for uncertain promises or windfalls. Its preference is for the secure over the unreachable, not a rejection of every reasonable risk or well-founded ambition.
- When it is used
Suitable when advising someone to accept a definite offer, payment, or opportunity rather than gamble it on a bigger but doubtful prospect, or when justifying one's own choice to settle for something certain and small.
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
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