The first blow is half the battle.
It is as good as two according to the Italians.
The hardest step is over the threshold.
"The first step is all the difficulty" (French).[731] It is well known that after St. Denis was decapitated he picked up his head, and walked a league with it in his hand to the spot where his church was afterwards erected. Recounting this miracle one day in a private circle, Cardinal de Polignac laid great stress on the length of the way traversed in that manner by the martyred saint; whereupon Madame du Deffaut remarked that this was not the most surprising part of the miracle, for in such cases "the first step was all the difficulty."
Everything has a beginning.
A child must creep ere it can go.
"Every beginning is feeble" (Latin).[732] "'Every beginning is hard,' as the thief said when he began by stealing an anvil" (German).[733]
Rome was not built in a day.
FOOTNOTES:
[730] Barba remojada, medio rapada.
[731] Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coûte.