Don’t be hasty in evaluating one’s assets.

Many of the proverbial words of advice that have lasted the test of time begin with ‘don’t’. We are warned not to ‘keep a dog and bark ourselves’, ‘look a gift horse in the mouth’, ‘change horses in mid-stream’ etc. ‘Don’t count your chickens’ is one of the oldest, and possibly the wisest, of these. The thought was recorded in print by Thomas Howell in New Sonnets and pretty Pamphlets, 1570:

Counte not thy Chickens that vnhatched be,
Waye wordes as winde, till thou finde certaintee