Meaning
Do not risk everything on a single plan, investment, or opportunity.
The advice is about spreading risk rather than avoiding it altogether — since if that one venture fails, having no backup means losing everything at once.
Origin
The saying is often traced to Miguel de Cervantes’s “Don Quixote” (1605), where Sancho Panza advises against risking everything at once, reasoning that “’tis the part of a wise man to keep himself today for tomorrow, and not venture all his eggs in one basket.” This attribution is widely repeated, though it should be treated with some caution, since it depends on which English translation of Cervantes is being quoted and how closely that phrasing matches Cervantes’s actual 17th-century Spanish. Independent of Cervantes, the image itself is a straightforward piece of practical market wisdom: a basket of eggs is fragile and easily dropped, so splitting a fragile, valuable cargo across several containers was simply common sense for anyone who actually carried eggs to sell, long before anyone wrote the advice down.
Examples
Investing your entire savings in one stock is like putting all your eggs in one basket.
The company diversified its suppliers so it wouldn’t put all its eggs in one basket.
Applying to only one university is putting all your eggs in one basket.
A: “Should I quit my job to focus only on this one client?” B: “That sounds like putting all your eggs in one basket.”
Frequently asked questions
What does 'Don't put all your eggs in one basket' mean?
Do not risk everything on a single plan, investment, or opportunity.
The advice is about spreading risk rather than avoiding it altogether — since if that one venture fails, having no backup means losing everything at once.