Proverb:
Capture stones caught in a ladder at the earliest opportunity
This is not the same as start a ladder at the earliest opportunity!
Learned to appreciate this recently in a game of mine:
I started a ladder without considering the consequences of the potential ladder breakers carefully. I captured the laddered stones but my opponent took more advantage of his ladder breaker and the follow up. (dont have the sgf available right now)
But this works also the other way around. If there is no good ladder breaker it is probably a good idea to start the ladder in time (or capture in a net). (Especially if the laddered stone is an important cutting stone)