Slow and steady wins the race.

The proverb comes from the fable of the tortoise and the hare, told by Aesop: the hare, sure of winning, stops to rest, and the tortoise, plodding on without a pause, reaches the post first. The saying draws the moral: perseverance beats speed, and steady effort outlasts brilliance that cannot keep going. It is used to encourage the slow and to warn the gifted.

Every language that has the fable has a form of the moral. La Fontaine’s “Le Lièvre et la Tortue” opens with the line French speakers quote instead: “Rien ne sert de courir ; il faut partir à point.” Italian says “chi va piano va sano e va lontano”, the one who goes slowly goes safely and goes far; Spanish has “vísteme despacio, que tengo prisa”, dress me slowly, I am in a hurry.

The English wording is a later distillation of the fable’s moral, and it reads as a proverb even to those who have never heard of the hare.

English proverb