put all (one's) eggs in one basket

put all (one's) eggs in one basket

To invest, devote, or commit all of one's energy or resources into a single venture, opportunity, or goal, generally at the risk of losing everything in the event that that thing fails or does not come to fruition. She has all her eggs in one basket with this merger deal. If it doesn't work out, I doubt her company can survive. I applied to several colleges so I wasn't putting all my eggs in one basket.See also: all, basket, egg, one, put

put all one's eggs in one basket

Fig. to make everything dependent on only one thing; to place all one's resources in one place, account, etc. (If the basket is dropped, all is lost.) Don't invest all your money in one company. Never put all your eggs in one basket. I advise you to diversify and not to put all your eggs in one basket.See also: all, basket, egg, one, put

put all one's eggs in one basket

Risk all of one's resources in a single venture, as in He had warned Peter about investing heavily in a single stock; it was putting all his eggs in one basket . This proverb, first recorded in 1710, has largely replaced the much older trust all one's goods to one ship. Mark Twain played on it in Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894): "The fool saith, 'Put not all thy eggs in one basket' ... but the wise man saith, 'Put all your eggs in one basket, and watch that basket!'" See also: all, basket, egg, one, put

put all your eggs in one basket

COMMON If you put all your eggs in one basket, you put all your efforts or resources into one course of action and will not be able to do anything else if this fails. You could argue this is a risky strategy, putting all your eggs in one basket; if the firm goes bust you lose your job and your savings and everything. Don't put your eggs in one basket; study hard at school and always keep an alternative job in mind. Note: People sometimes put other words before eggs and basket to show a particular situation they are talking about. Never put all your investment eggs in one basket. These countries have put their development eggs in the tourism basket, spending millions of dollars from public funds to build the sorts of facilities that foreign tourists demand.See also: all, basket, egg, one, put

put all your eggs into one ˈbasket

risk all your money, effort, etc. on one thing, so that if it is not successful, you have no other chance: It may be better to invest a small amount of money in several businesses rather than putting all your eggs into one basket.See also: all, basket, egg, one, put

put all one's eggs in one basket

To risk all one’s resources in a single venture. One might think this proverb was very old indeed, but the same idea used to be put as trusting all one’s goods to one ship, which antedates it by many centuries. “Putting all one’s eggs in the same basket,” thereby incurring the risk that the basket will be dropped and all the eggs will break, was first stated only in 1710, in Samuel Palmer’s Moral Essays on Proverbs. Mark Twain contradicted the idea in Pudd’nhead Wilson (1894): “The fool saith, ‘Put not all thy eggs in one basket’—which is but a manner of saying, ‘Scatter your money and your attention’; but the wise man saith, ‘Put all your eggs in one basket, and WATCH THAT BASKET.’”See also: all, basket, egg, one, put