Look before you leap Neutral

To think carefully about possible risks or consequences before taking action, rather than acting impulsively.

It’s most often offered as advice or a mild warning, sometimes in hindsight after someone has already acted too hastily.

The proverb is often linked to Aesop’s fable “The Fox and the Goat,” in which a fox trapped at the bottom of a well tricks a thirsty goat into jumping down to join it, then escapes by climbing onto the goat’s horns and back — leaving the goat stuck below as a lesson in acting without checking the consequences first. However, phrase historians who have traced the wording closely note that this specific moral doesn’t actually appear in the earliest surviving versions of the fable, suggesting it was attached to the story later rather than being its original point. The documented English wording has its own separate, older trail: a related caution appears as early as 1450, and William Tyndale’s 1528 religious work “The Obedience of a Christian Man” already uses the more compact form “Loke yer thou lepe” (“look before you leap”), treating it as an existing saying rather than coining something new. The proverb’s modern form, and its heavy association with the Aesop fable, both solidified gradually over the following centuries, particularly as a stock warning against rushing into decisions such as marriage.

Look before you leap — read the whole contract before you sign anything.

He never looks before he leaps, which is how he ended up with three unfinished projects at once.

Before quitting your job to travel, remember to look before you leap.

A: I already put down a deposit on the apartment without seeing it. B: You really should look before you leap next time.