practice makes perfect

Eloquence was vsed, and through practise made parfect.
[1553 T. Wilson Art of Rhetoric 3]

Forsooth as vse makes perfectnes, so seldome seene is soone forgotten.
[1599 H. Porter Two Angry Women of Abington l. 913]

Practice makes perfect.
[1761 J. Adams Diary (1961) I. 192]

He lighted seven fires, skillfully on the whole, for practice makes perfect.
[1863 C. Reade Hard Cash III. iv.]

It is like playing the piano or riding a bicycle. Practice makes perfect.
[1979 D. Lessing Shikasta 185]

The quality of the [blackbird's] song improves as the season progresses. ‥This, presumably, is a matter of practice makes perfect.
[2002 Country Life 14 Feb. 49]

Related to: diligence

Bibliography of major proverb collections and works cited from modern editions is available here.

Frequently doing something makes one better at doing it, as in I've knit at least a hundred sweaters, but in my case practice hasn't made perfect. This proverbial expression was once put as Use makes mastery, but by 1560 the present form had become established.