寧缺毋濫nìng quē wú lànsooner leave a post vacant than have it haphazardly filled; would rather go without than have sth. shoddy—put quality before quantity
? 前天晚上，我們不是決定了‘～’的宗旨么？(茅盾《子夜》129) If you remember,gentlemen,we decided the night before last to work on the principle of keeping our numbers down when necessary. 寧缺毋濫nìnɡ quē wú làn寧：寧可；毋：不要；濫：過度。寧可少些甚至沒有，也不要降低標準來湊數(shù)。put quality before quantity, rather have a void than a substandard substitute |