Better a sparrow in the hand than a pigeon on the branch.
Proverbs have no individual author. They passed orally through generations and were only written down from the nineteenth century onward, when collectors of folk literature began systematically recording what until then had been carried in memory. The sayings gathered here come from Croatian oral tradition and often exist in several variants depending on the region.
About this theme: Wisdom
In the Western tradition wisdom is almost always defined by what it is not. Socrates is famous for claiming to know that he knew nothing; that was not modesty but method. Knowledge is a set of facts, wisdom is knowing what to do with them — and, more often, knowing when there are not enough of them.
More by Croatian Proverb
More on Wisdom
- Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small.— Lao Tzu
- An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.— Benjamin Franklin
- Talent hits a target no one else can hit; genius hits a target no one else can see.— Arthur Schopenhauer
- He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.— Lao Tzu
- Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.— Baruch Spinoza