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• Haste makes waste
  Haste makes waste

  Acting too quickly may actually slow things down.
• haste makes waste
  haste makes waste

  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.”

Haste makes waste

Cultural  

1. Acting too quickly may actually slow things down.

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haste makes waste Idioms  

1. 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

I know the pandemic upped demand but haste makes waste.

From Seattle Times • Sep. 19, 2021

Handled right, Egypt is ‘‘going to be more like Turkey’’ than Iran, ‘‘but haste makes waste.’’

From BusinessWeek • Feb. 4, 2011

This was Britain's Sir Hartley Shawcross, 44, a quick-witted prosecutor who had not yet learned that, at international conferences, haste makes waste, or worse.

From Time Magazine Archive

In the forest it is truer than elsewhere that haste makes waste, and, as materials are rare and valuable, patience is the trapper's stock in trade.

From The Wilderness Trail by Williams, Frank

You must not leape ower the stile before you come to it; haste makes waste; softe fire makes sweet malte; not too fast for falling; there's no hast to hang true men.

From Proverb Lore Many sayings, wise or otherwise, on many subjects, gleaned from many sources by Hulme, F. Edward (Frederick Edward)