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If a THING'S worth doing, it's worth doing well

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From: The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs
Date: 20030101
Author:JENNIFER SPEAKE

If a THING'S worth doing, it's worth doing well Job is sometimes used instead of thing .
1746 Chesterfield Letter 9 Oct. (1932) III. 783
Care and application are necessary. ‥In truth, whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well.
1910 G. K. Chesterton What's Wrong with World iv . xiv.
The elegant female, drooping her ringlets over her water-colours,‥was maintaining the prime truth of woman, the universal mother: that if a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.
1915 H. G. Wells Bealby v .
‘If a thing's worth doing at all,’ said the ...

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