Englishleave well enough alone
Meaning: To accept a situation as it is; to avoid trying to improve a situation one's actions might make it worse.
Example: “The engine runs fine, so leave well enough alone.”
Origin: The underlying caution against needlessly tinkering with something already adequate goes back to one of Aesop's fables, in which a fox declines a hedgehog's offer to remove the ticks currently feeding on it, reasoning that any ticks pulled off would only be replaced by a fresh, hungrier batch. A medieval French proverb carries the identical wisdom forward: assez est bone, lessez ester — "it is good enough, let it be." The English phrasing settled gradually, appearing as "let well alone" by the early 1700s before hardening into "let well enough alone" by 1827. The saying gained added historical weight as the personal motto of Sir Robert Walpole, widely considered Britain's first prime minister, whose long tenure was itself built partly on a preference for stability over needless reform.
More English idioms
- look like death warmed over To look/feel ill or exhausted.
- lose one's cool To become angry.
- lose one's temper To become suddenly angry. To hold one's temper means to remain calm when irritated.
- low man on the totem pole The person of lowest rank.
- make a clean breast of it To admit and explain some wrongdoing; to confess something.
- make a long story short To summarize; to tell only the main points.
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