The proverb is found in a number of forms. Predecessors include the following: •
Middle High German (positively formulated): ("The wise tell us that a nail keeps a shoe, a shoe a horse, a horse a man, a man a castle, that can fight.") • ("For sparing a little cost often a man has lost the large coat for the hood.") • "The French-men haue a military prouerbe; 'The losse of a nayle, the losse of an army'. The want of a nayle looseth the shooe, the losse of shooe troubles the horse, the horse indangereth the rider, the rider breaking his ranke molests the company, so farre as to hazard the whole Army". (1629
Thomas Adams (clergyman), "The Works of Thomas Adams: The Sum of His Sermons, Meditations, And Other Divine And Moral Discourses", p. 714") == Further reading ==