For a want of a nail the shoe is lost,for want of a shoe the horse is lost, for want of a horse the rider is lost. This proverb which stresses the importance of seeming trifles, dates back to the seventeenth century. In the eighteenth century Benjamin Franklin expanded it as follows:
For the want of a nail the shoe was lost
For the want of a shoe the horse was lost
For the want of a horse the rider was lost
For the want of a rider the battle was lost
For the want of a battle the kingdom was lost
And all for the want of a horseshoe-nail.