kill the goose that lays the golden eggs

1. Destroy a source of riches through stupidity or greed, as in If he never gives his loyal customers a break on some items in his store, he'll kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. This expression, already a proverb in the late 1400s, alludes to Aesop's fable about a farmer whose goose lays one golden egg a day, and who kills the goose in the mistaken belief that he'll get all the eggs at once.

Example Sentences

“And we can kill the goose that lays the golden eggs in the process of overregulating.”

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“These firms — high tech — are the reason California has a budget surplus, as opposed to a deficit,” he said, adding later: “We want to make sure that we don’t kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.”

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Don’t kill the goose that lays the golden eggs: let’s hear no more about regulations; forget taxes – they’re what governments waste.

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“We can’t kill the ‘goose that lays the golden eggs’ of the agricultural industry.”

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“The biggest fear, as always, is that politicians will kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.”

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