half the battle

A  very  successful  start. This  expression  is  part  of  an older proverb, “The first blow is half the battle,” which dates from the eigh- teenth century. In Oliver Goldsmith’s comedy, She Stoops to Conquer (1773), two  men  wish  to  make  a  good  impression  on  their  host’s  daughter.  One says, “I have been thinking, George, of changing our travelling dresses,” and the  other  replies, “You’re  right:  the  first  blow  is  half  the  battle.  I  intend opening  the  campaign  with  the  white  and  gold  [waistcoat].”  During  the nineteenth  century  the  first  half  of  the  expression  was  dropped, and  with overuse the term became a cliché