# Early To Bed And Early On The Rise....



## RhoKappa

_Early to bed and early on the rise will make a man healthy, wealthy and wise._

This is a very common maxim here in America, most often repeated by successful people.  These are the people who believe that success means staying away from all the carousing and other late-night social activities they consider bad habits to building wealth.  Such are the people who try to go to bed no later than 10:00 in the evening and are up early to start their day.  Is there such an equivalent Russian maxim?


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## flance_j

well-known "Кто рано встает, тому Бог подает."

Еще такая есть:
"Кто работы не боится, рано встать не ленится, тому и день длинней и урожай пышней."


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## horace.mik

All I can say is a short Russian proverb that is not closely related to  the maxim you have reported. It would be: "Здорòв будешь, всё добудешь"  (literally "If you are healthy, everything you'll get). I actually think  that it doesn't have anything to do with the success or some specific  ways of life, it's simply generic. I hope there's an exact version of  that maxim, but for now, let's wait for the wisest Russian native  speakers' opinions.


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## horace.mik

flance_j said:


> "кто работы не боится, рано встать не ленится, тому и день длинней и урожай пышней."


Очень странно, что я с самого утра до вечера работаю, и практически свободного дня не вижу, даже если он длинный, а урожай беден как всегда. :d


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## Maroseika

Looks like already mentioned Russian proverbs have quite different sense than the English one: just work hard and be first on-site to work, and you score a success. However the English proverb is just about regularity and concentration on the work. 
I found the following Russian equivalent, (although resembling a modern calque):

Кто рано ложится, рано встает, здоровье, богатство, ум наживет.


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## Awwal12

RhoKappa said:


> _Early to bed and early on the rise will make a man healthy, wealthy and wise._
> 
> This is a very common maxim here in America, most often repeated by  successful people.  These are the people who believe that success means  staying away from all the carousing and other late-night social  activities they consider bad habits to building wealth.  Such are the  people who try to go to bed no later than 10:00 in the evening and are  up early to start their day.  Is there such an equivalent Russian  maxim?





horace.mik said:


> All I can say is a short  Russian proverb that is not closely related to  the maxim you have  reported. It would be: "Здорòв будешь, всё добудешь"  (literally "If you  are healthy, everything you'll get). I actually think  that it doesn't  have anything to do with the success or some specific  ways of life,  it's simply generic. I hope there's an exact version of  that maxim, but  for now, let's wait for the wisest Russian native  speakers'  opinions.


Although that exact maxim can be translated into  Russian, I'm afraid it won't make it any more popular anyway. You could  call it a perfect representation of the American dream, formed in a  developed capitalistic society and influenced by the Protestant ethics.  However, Russian collective ideals are far enough from it. Russia still  hasn't a firm middle class till nowadays. Russia is somewhat influenced  by the Communist doctrine. Russia bears traces of the somewhat more  traditional Christian ideal of apostolic poverty, instead of Zwingli's  ideas that God marks righteous people with wealth. Russia currently is a  country of a young, post-Socialist, wild capitalism. As a result, an  average Russian is (still) a pretty envious person who, of course, likes  wealth by himself, but nevertheless dislikes wealthy people, - and is  also a pretty pessimistic person, I must add. So it's quite natural that  such maxim cannot become popular now and nothing quite similar could  originate in Russia in the previous ages.

As for the benefits of waking up early, *flance_j* already provided some proverbs and sayings above.


horace.mik said:


> Очень странно, что я с самого утра до вечера работаю, и практически свободного дня не вижу, даже если он длинный, а урожай беден как всегда. :d


Probably because you are not a peasant?


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## flance_j

Awwal12 said:


> Although that exact maxim can be translated into  Russian, I'm afraid it won't make it any more popular anyway. You could  call it a perfect representation of the American dream, formed in a  developed capitalistic society and influenced by the Protestant ethics.  However, Russian collective ideals are far enough from it. Russia still  hasn't a firm middle class till nowadays. Russia is somewhat influenced  by the Communist doctrine. Russia bears traces of the somewhat more  traditional Christian ideal of apostolic poverty, instead of Zwingli's  ideas that God marks righteous people with wealth. Russia currently is a  country of a young, post-Socialist, wild capitalism. As a result, an  average Russian is (still) a pretty envious person who, of course, likes  wealth by himself, but nevertheless dislikes wealthy people, - and is  also a pretty pessimistic person, I must add. So it's quite natural that  such maxim cannot become popular now and nothing quite similar could  originate in Russia in the previous ages.


Согласен во всем, но хотел бы добавить, что причины не только исторические, но и объективные.
Люди не видят связь между затраченными усилиями и вознаграждением.
Как в армии - "копай от забора и до заката" )
Потому что начальник скорее всего не оценит, оплату не повысит, а нагрузит дополнительной работой.

И у нас считается, что если богатый, то наворовал или обманул.
Чиновник богатый - нормально. А вот если врач богатый, то люди считают, что он хапуга и рвач.
Считается, что хороший врач должен быть бедным, ведь нельзя наживаться на болезнях других.
И до сих пор отношение к деньгам у русских людей, как к чему-то грязному.

Извините, что по-русски написал, но по-английски не смог бы сформулировать точно.

If you want to know a popular russian proverb about work, here's one:
"Работа не волк, в лес не убежит"


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## RhoKappa

This is exactly how I understand the maxim: if your habit is just to stay up late and party every night, your chances of good health and financial success greatly diminish, and doing the opposite (i.e., getting up early, working early and remaining productive and staying away from the party life) will be something you will be glad you did later on in life, hence the wisdom.  The unsuccessful loser who dies of liver failure at age 52 was a miserable man who regretted not doing the more important things in life, especially building a successful one.  His colleague, however, chose not to party but instead worked days building a successful business and he is today 75 years old, a millionaire, in perfect health, travels the world and is the complete opposite of what his unsuccessful colleague became, hence the maxim.

Would a literal translation make sense to Russians?  It may not rhyme, but I am sure most Russians will understand, but I am surprised that there is no equivalent maxim that perfectly matches.


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## Maroseika

RhoKappa said:


> Would a literal translation make sense to Russians?  It may not rhyme, but I am sure most Russians will understand, but I am surprised that there is no equivalent maxim that perfectly matches.



I strongly doubt there is such a proverb or maxim in too many other languages. Anyway, literal translation that I have already provided, seems to be quite clear to any Russian native:

Кто рано ложится, рано встает, здоровье, богатство, ум наживет.

By the way, the English proverb is also not a "folk" one, it is attributed to B. Franklin, so it is still a big question to what extent we can consider it as a popular wisdom of some people or culture, at least more popular than, say, "Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man stupid and blind in the eyes".


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## Awwal12

flance_j said:


> Согласен во всем, но хотел бы добавить, что причины не только исторические, но и объективные.


Так "объективные причины" не с потолка берутся. Каждый следующий день - закономерное следствие предыдущего.


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## DrDIT

There is one more cultural difference that contributes to Russian not having a similar maxim: most Russians go to bed much later than most Americans. I've lived in both countries, so I can compare. I personally usually stay up till 2 am (not partying, but working on my computer, or going to movies). Also, many businesses in Russia are open 24/7 (supermarkets, farmacies, etc.) That is, the very idea of "going to bed early" does not seem right to many, including me )).


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## Awwal12

DrDIT said:


> There is one more cultural difference that contributes to Russian not having a similar maxim: most Russians go to bed much later than most Americans. I've lived in both countries, so I can compare. I personally usually stay up till 2 am (not partying, but working on my computer, or going to movies). Also, many businesses in Russia are open 24/7 (supermarkets, farmacies, etc.) That is, the very idea of "going to bed early" does not seem right to many, including me )).


Well, many people have to wake up at 6:00 or so just to get to work in time, so going to bed at 1:00-2:00 a.m. is out of the question for them. However, it seems really few people go to bed at 22:00 and even at 23:00 after all.


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## flance_j

Life is too short to go to bed early)


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## Awwal12

flance_j said:


> Life is too short to go to bed early)


Off-topic, but that's a pretty wrong logic.
Amount of the active time doesn't depend on how early one goes to bed, but solely on how long he sleeps.
And systematic undersleeping not just reduces the quality of the remaining active time, but also tends to make "life" even "shorter".


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## flance_j

[offtopic]I agree with you. That was a joke  [/offtopic]


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## learnerr

Awwal12 said:


> nothing quite similar could  originate in Russia in the previous ages.


Why? We do have, and plenty: без труда не выловится и рыбка из пруда, терпенье и труд всё перетрут, etc. That a proverb completely similar to one cited is bad in Russian is simply a fact of language, of difference that languages have in their approaches to the treatment of the world. For us facts (if they're facts, not judgements) don't contain judgements, but entail them, so that translation simply rings no bell, it hangs in the void (повисает в воздухе, not sure how to say in English), sounds desperately abstract; the original version was developed to contain a judgement under a mask of telling some facts, it was not developed to entail anything. And, of course, the translation can't make think of parties (for parties one would need to say something entirely separately). In fact, it can't make think of anything concrete.

And, well, for me losing time in parties and losing time in building great fortunes look equally pointless activities, so the odes that I hear to the latter sound like a quirk of the American ideology… But I don't think this has much to do with such proverbs. Difference of formulations is due to difference of languages, mostly.


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## Bombist

утро вечера мудренее -- morning is wiser than the evening


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## learnerr

Bombist said:


> утро вечера мудренее


Exactly!
The sense is very different than in the original (this one simply means that at morning one better thinks and works than at night), but it does not usually happen otherwise.


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## Awwal12

learnerr said:


> Why? We do have, and plenty: без труда не выловится и рыбка из пруда, терпенье и труд всё перетрут, etc.


I'm afraid you have missed a considerable difference here.
The statements "hard labour will make you rich" and "hard labour is required to get anything" are quite different, aren't they?


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## Dan2

RhoKappa said:


> _Early to bed and early *on the rise* will make a man healthy, wealthy and wise._
> 
> This is a very common maxim here in America


I agree that that this is a very common saying, but I've never heard it said with "on the rise", only "Early to bed and early to rise ..."  And in general, "on the rise" seems strange as a reference to rising (in the sense of waking up and getting out of bed).  The main meaning of "on the rise" is "increasing" (as in "Unemployment was on the rise").

My comment of course doesn't bear on the discussion in the thread, but in view of WRF as a general reference source, I think it's worth noting.


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## RhoKappa

I was about to make that correction myself, given that I misquoted Benjamin Franklin, the man on the coveted $100 bill in Russia.


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## learnerr

Awwal12 said:


> I'm afraid you have missed a considerable difference here.
> The statements "hard labour will make you rich" and "hard labour is required to get anything" are quite different, aren't they?


One is a special case of the other, not that much of difference. I'm not sure that wealth in the original is not just an example, easily substituted by anything else. But what is interesting: if we simply try to express the idea in Russian without effort to make special effects: «Если рано ложиться и рано вставать, то сей режим дня приводит к улучшению здоровья, накоплению богатств и повышению разумности», then the resulting proverb appears as rather unwise, too quick at conclusions, incomplete, lacking, and thus of little interest. I don't believe the original is stupid, it is more likely that the original is simply supposed to be read differently: as a symbol, a suggestion for further thinking and imagination (or as an excerpt from a larger text with all required reasoning around, but this kind of reading is not the case here). Somehow these things (wealth, health, wisdom) seem to be too heavy to form a suggestion in Russian though, so we have what we have — a Russian sentence of this meaning would be either subject to literal understanding (as a report on some investigation) or as nothing of interest… And literal understanding doesn't do favour to it, since the investigation appears incomplete and the reasoning lacking.


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