Ecclesiastes 4:6

Better is a handful with quietness The preposition is in both clauses an interpolation, and we should read "a handful of repose, … two handfuls of travail and feeding on wind." In form the saying presents a parallel to Proverbs 15:17, "Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith;" but the thought is obviously of a less ethical character. The feeling expressed in Ecclesiastes 4:5-6 (the latter confirming the interpretation just given of the former) is such as we may think of as rising in the mind of an ambitious statesman or artist striving after fame, as he looks on the dolce far nienteof a lazzaroneat Naples, half-naked, basking in the sun, and revelling in the enjoyment of his water-melon. The one would at such a time, almost change places with the other, but that something after all forbids. The words have almost a verbal parallelism in our common English proverb "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."