C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Delay
Delay is as hateful as it is dangerous.
Dull not device by coldness and delay.
Every delay that postpones our joys is long.
Lingering labors come to naught.
All delays are dangerous in war.
Away with delay; the chance of great fortune is short-lived.
He that riseth late must tread all day, and shall scarce overtake his business at night.
Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends.
The opportunity is often lost by deliberating.
What reason could not avoid has often been cured by delay.
Every delay is too long to one who is in a hurry.
Away with delay—it always injures those who are prepared.
When a man’s life is at stake no delay is too long.
One man by delay restored the state, for he preferred the public safety to idle report.
He that gives time to resolve gives leisure to deny, and warning to prepare.
Some one speaks admirably of “the well-ripened fruit of sage delay.”
The procrastinator is not only indolent and weak, but commonly false, too; most of the weak are false.
He who prorogues the honesty of to-day till to-morrow will probably prorogue his to-morrows to eternity.
When the death of a human being may be the consequence, no delay that is afforded is long.
Meet the disorder in the outset, the medicine may be too late, when the disease has gained ground through delay.
Procrastination is the thief of time; year after year it steals, till all are fled, and to the mercies of a moment leaves the vast concerns of an eternal scene.
Time drinketh up the essence of every great and noble action, which ought to be performed, and is delayed in the execution.