Haste makes waste

Acting too quickly may actually slow things down.

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Idioms and Phrases

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.”

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Example Sentences

There is no other kind of work in which "haste makes waste" with the certainty that it does in varnishing.

From Project Gutenberg

Haste makes waste, and waste makes want, and want makes strife between the gudeman and the gudewife.

From Project Gutenberg

Regarding the first part of the act, let it be said that here, above all other situations in the world "haste makes waste."

From Project Gutenberg

Poor Charlotte had no procrastination, but rather the failing of “Haste makes waste” of the old proverb.

From Project Gutenberg

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

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