mieux vaut une tête bien faite, plutôt qu'une tête bien pleine

[Keith Lyons]

Dear People:

Via Balzac & some other French references I've come across the proverbial-sounding phrase
"Mieux vaut une tete bien faite, plutot qu'une tete bien pleine".

I know i'm missing accents here -- but what I'm really missing is the crucial sense, the French deep-culture sense of this sentence.

So this means, kind of, sort of: "better a well structured head than a full head" -- or what? Key phrsaes are "tete bien faite" & "tete bien pleine"?
This is a reference to order & disorder of some kind?
Is there a valid, well-targeted, English-language translation (or equivalent proverb?) which anyone knows of or would be so kind as to suggest?

Thank you ahead of time for whatever input you may have.

Yours gratefully: -- Keith Lyons

 

[Sacha-Chan]

Moi, en tant que jeune française, j'ai l'impression que l'on parle de la beauté du visage dans l'expression "tête bien faite"
Cela voudrait dire que: "Il vaut mieux être beau plutôt qu'intelligent"

 

[Ros_Bif]

It's better to have a pretty face than a good brain.

 

[NemoNobody]

"Mieux vaut une tête bien faite qu'une tête bien pleine" is actually a quote from Montaigne (see http://www.devoir-de-philosophie.com/dissertation-mieux-vaut-tete-bien-faite-tete-bien-pleine-5030.html).

I was taught at college that it means a well structured knowledge is better than a simply quantitative one, and I don't believe it could have anything to do with a pretty face: only "contents" matter here...

 

[Keith Lyons]

Dear all,

How about: "It's better to have knowledge that's well structured than to be a walking encyclopaedia"?
Or: "Better to know the path than to be lost in a forest of knowledge"?
Or: "When it comes to knowledge, quality of contents counts more than quantity"?
Or: "It's not how much you know but the quality of what you know that matters most" ?

Would any of these four be a fair, idiomatic translation?

Isn't it the vernacular tang, after all, that rings the truest?

Thank you:Keithy Lyons.

(PS. I agree, the original French phrase doesn't have anything to do with a pretty face)

 

[arsham]

Dear all,

How about: "It's better to have knowledge that's well structured than to be a walking encyclopaedia"?

I like this one although I tend to be a walking encylopaedia (by the way you can have them on your mobile phones! )

 

[Interprete]

Tête bien faite = esprit critique
tête bien pleine = bourrage de crâne

 

[Keith Lyons]

Dear Arsham,
Thank you for the feedback vote --
RE: It's better to have knowledge that's well structured than to be a walking encyclopaedia.
Though I disagree about the mobile phone (& computers!) -- we don't have knowledge there, but information.
All the best:
-- Keith Lyons

 

[KaRiNe_Fr]

Salut Keith Lyons,

D'accord avec Interprete. Pour paraphraser : mieux vaut savoir réfléchir par soi-même que d'avoir uniquement appris les connaissances des autres.

 

[Uncle Bob]

Very loosely, and not an expression I have heard anywhere: Better a thinker than a parrot.

 

[Keith Lyons]

Well, Uncle Bob (&, by the way, KaRiNe_Fr):

First, most parrots I've met don't have a heck of a lot of information to spout forth.
Remember the original idea is "tete bien pleine"-- an over-full head, being able to speak about too much, know too much, and thus not
really communicate well. Every parrot I've met makes their few points real clear -- as Long John Silver's parrot ("Ahoy, matey!") in Stevenson's Treasure Island
exhibited well.

Second, can't deny however that there's a kernel of truth in your idea. A "tete bien pleine" is prone to obfuscate by virtue of repeating others' ideas ("les connaissances des autres"); the bane of most academic mish-mash writing, spec. in 2nd half of 20th cent. to the present time.

Thanks for the feed back!

Yrs., Keith Lyons.

 

[Uncle Bob]

A "tete bien pleine" is prone to obfuscate by virtue of repeating others' ideas ("les connaissances des autres"); the bane of most academic mish-mash writing, spec. in 2nd half of 20th cent. to the present time.

That was precisely the thing to which I was referring. ("Parrot-wise" learning being an accusation sometimes levelled at those emerging from the "Grandes Écoles" - by the newspapers Le Monde and Le Monde Diplomatique amongst others - and they certainly have full heads).

 

[Keith Lyons]

Dear Uncle Bob:

Yes, totally agreee; as Orwell said: the whole tendency of modern prose is away from concreteness. And thus: “The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns...instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.”


So here’s to being succint & to the point in turbulent, election-year 2012!


Guess this wraps up "Mieux vaut une tête bien faite qu'une tête bien pleine" ? -- though, I'm sure, the phenomenon shall prosper.


Best: -- Keith Lyons

PS.
And many thanks to "NemoNobody" for locating the quote in Montaigne : Balzac).

 

[sound shift]

"Being able to think is better than having a head stuffed full of facts" - perhaps.

 

[JeanDeSponde]

A well-formed rather than a well-filled mind?

 

[Moon Palace]

This is also a quote of Montaigne, and one translation goes like this: "a good mind is better than a gorged one"

 

[Keith Lyons]

Folks, we get the sense -- but maybe it doesn't translate well?
I.e. "good mind" is flat beer compared to the French tang of "une tête bien faite". No?
-- Keith Lyons

 

[Moon Palace]

For what it's worth, and regardless of the quote, the Robert and Collins dictionary translates une tête bien faite by a good mind. The point is that bien faite does not really mean sharp or clever, otherwise you could say a sharp mind or use other similar adjectives.

 

[wildan1]

I agree; a good mind is just bland in English. "He has a good mind" is something you might say of someone who seems intelligent but isn't doing much with it.

Maybe if we approach it without relying on adjectives: How much is in your head is less important than how you use it.

 

[NemoNobody]

PS.
And many thanks to "NemoNobody" for locating the quote in Montaigne : Balzac).

You're welcome, I initially thought it was from Rabelais...

 

[mirifica]

Bonjour à tous,

better be brainy than have brains burdened with knowlege. ???
better have an sharp (agile) mind than one burdened... ? ??

 

[franc 91]

Knowing how to use your intelligence is far better than filling your head with some unending quantity of useless facts (suggestion) - (not that a WR Forum could in any possible way resemble such a thing, of course)