“The rich eat when they want; the poor eat when they can.”
Wealth grants freedom of choice, while poverty forces people to act on whatever opportunity appears.
— Traditional Georgia Wisdom, Georgia
Source: Traditional Georgian proverb, public-domain oral tradition
More Proverbs from Georgia
Whatever the wind brings, the wind takes away.
Wealth or fortune gained by chance can just as easily disappear again.
He who is in a hurry always arrives late.
Acting too hastily often causes delays or mistakes rather than saving time.
You can conquer the whole world with words, but not with drawn swords.
Wisdom and persuasion achieve more lasting victories than violence and force.
You can buy them, but they do not stay bought.
Loyalty gained through money alone is unreliable and rarely lasts.
Better to drink from a small well with soft water than from the salty sea.
A modest, genuine good is worth more than a vast but bitter or unusable abundance.
You cackle in our place, but you lay your eggs at someone else's place.
Describes someone whose noise and presence are local, but whose true loyalty or benefit lies elsewhere.