Drive not a second nail till the first is clenched.
Meaning: Complete each task fully before beginning another, ensuring solid progress rather than scattered effort.
Origin: Recorded in A Dictionary of English Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, an undated collection published in London by Whittaker & Co. around 1880 and credited to Thomas Preston. Its earlier history hasn't been traced.
More proverbs about Challenge
- It is ill meddling with edged tools. — Dabbling with dangerous instruments without skill or caution invites injury and regret.
- An empty purse fills the face with wrinkles. — Poverty's hardships and anxieties visibly age a person through stress and deprivation.
- If you must have an evil, choose a little one. — Small harms wisely accepted spare you from greater suffering later.
- That which is evil is soon learnt. — Evil habits spread faster than good ones because humans naturally gravitate toward the ea…
- The evil wound is cured, but not the evil name. — Damage to reputation proves harder to repair than physical harm, as public memory outlast…
- Of evil grain no good seed can come. — Corrupt foundations yield only corrupt results; moral degradation cannot produce virtue.
From our false friends
- Sensible — Actually means 'sensitive'. For sensible/level-headed, say raisonnable.
- Librairie — Actually means 'bookshop'. A library is une bibliothèque.
- Constipado — Actually means 'having a head cold'. Estoy constipado = I have a cold.