The phrase, slow and steady wins the race, means “the best results come from consistent gradual progress, not from brief, intense effort.”
For example, if you want to lose weight, you need to change your eating habits gradually for a long time, not starve yourself for a week. In order to make a successful business, you need to invest time, money, and effort every day for years.
This saying reminds us of the ancient Greek story of the tortoise and the hare, from the collection, Aesop’s Fables—which is familiar to all Westerners. A tortoise is like a turtle, but lives on land, not in the water. And a hare is a kind of rabbit. Tortoises are famously slow and rabbits are famously fast. In the story, the tortoise and the hare are in a race. The hare advances so quickly that he becomes over-confident and decides he can take a nap, before finishing the race, because the tortoise is so far behind. This is like a person who becomes overconfident and stops working hard. While the hare is napping, the tortoise continues without stopping and wins the race. So, this story—and the phrase—reminds us that it is better to work steadily—moderately—every day, rather than to work very hard for short periods of time.