haste makes waste

haste makes waste idiom
Proceeding too quickly can spoil an enterprise, as in Stop trying to rush through three things at once—haste makes waste, you know. This rhyming warning, first recorded in this exact form in 1575, was in John Ray's 1678 proverb collection, where the full text was: “Haste makes waste, and waste makes want, and want makes strife between the goodman and his wife.”

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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