Waking up early

Commentary

In antiquity and the middle ages

In the ancient Greek treatise Economics, customarily attributed to Aristotle but commonly considered a work of one of his students, rising early is promoted.

Rising before daylight is also to be commended; it is a healthy habit, and gives more time for the management of the household as well as for liberal studies.

The Chinese proverb, "A year's plan begins in spring, and the day's plan begins in morning", emphasizes that morning is the most important time of day. It has been recorded in proverb anthologies as early as the Liang dynasty.

Anthony Fitzherbert, English judge and scholar of the Middle Ages, also promoted early rising:

Erly rysyng maketh a man hole in body, holer in soule, and rycher in goodes.

In modernity

Similar ideas were later expressed by Benjamin Franklin who wrote in Poor Richard's Almanack: "Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise". It is a saying that is viewed as a commonsensical proverb, which was included in "A Method of Prayer" by Mathew Henry who also listed it as a phrase "long said", and previously appears in John Clarke's Parœmiologia Anglo-Latina (1639). Franklin is also quoted as saying: "The early morning has gold in its mouth", a translation of the German proverb "Morgenstund hat Gold im Mund".

In 1855, Anna Laetitia Waring published a book entitled "'Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise', or, Early Rising: A Natural, Social, and Religious Duty" sometimes misattributed to Franklin.

Within the context of religious observances, spiritual writers, most notably Saint Josemaría Escrivá, have called this practice "the heroic minute", referring to the sacrifice which this entails.

"The early bird gets the worm" is a proverb that suggests that getting up early will lead to success during the day. Which brings to mind the immediate counterpoint: "what about the early worm, shouldn't he have stayed in bed?"

James Thurber, in his book Fables for our Time, ended the Fable of the Shrike: "Early to rise and early to bed, makes a Shrike healthy, and wealthy, and dead".