“The earliest known version of this expression is found in the collection of medieval French poems Li Proverbe au Vilain, which was published around 1190:
Rome ne fu[t] pas faite toute en un jour
The expression is first found in English in Richard Taverner’s translation from the Latin of Erasmus’s Prouerbes, 1545: [Erasmus published that in 1500]
Ye may use this prouerbe when ye wol signifie that one daye… is not ynoughe for… acheuinge… a great matter… Rome was not buylt in one day. ….
The proverb was well enough known for Queen Elizabeth I to have included it in a public address that she made on a visit to Cambridge in 1564:
“But this common saying has given me a certain amount of comfort – a saying which cannot take away, but can at least lessen, the grief that I feel; and the saying is, that Rome was not built in one day.” “
One could also say that Rome didn’t fall in a day, either. :-)
Throughout the time of Boston’s famed Big Dig transportation construction project, there was a large orange billboard that read in black text: “Rome wasn’t Built in a day. If it were, we would’ve hired their contractor.”
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“Rome wasn’t built in a day” is an old proverb, although there doesn’t seem to be any recorded instance of it going back to the time of the Roman Republic / Empire. From Rome Wasn’t Built In A Day – Meaning & Origin Of The Phrase :
“The earliest known version of this expression is found in the collection of medieval French poems Li Proverbe au Vilain, which was published around 1190:
The expression is first found in English in Richard Taverner’s translation from the Latin of Erasmus’s Prouerbes, 1545: [Erasmus published that in 1500]
Ye may use this prouerbe when ye wol signifie that one daye… is not ynoughe for… acheuinge… a great matter… Rome was not buylt in one day. ….
The proverb was well enough known for Queen Elizabeth I to have included it in a public address that she made on a visit to Cambridge in 1564:
One could also say that Rome didn’t fall in a day, either. :-)
Throughout the time of Boston’s famed Big Dig transportation construction project, there was a large orange billboard that read in black text: “Rome wasn’t Built in a day. If it were, we would’ve hired their contractor.”