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C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.

Irresolution

Don’t stand shivering upon the bank; plunge in at once and have it over.

Haliburton.

We spend our days in deliberating, and we end them without coming to any resolve.

L’Estrange.

  • Like a man to double business bound,
  • I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
  • And both neglect.
  • Shakespeare.

  • I am a heavy stone,
  • Roll’d up a hill by a weak child: I move
  • A little up, and tumble back again.
  • W. Rider.

    Not to resolve is to resolve; and many times it breeds as many necessities, and engageth as far in some other sort, as to resolve.

    Bacon.

    In matters of great concern, and which must be done, there is no surer argument of a weak mind than irresolution.

    Tillotson.

    Nothing of worth or weight can be achieved with half a mind, with a faint heart, and with a lame endeavor.

    Barrow.

    Irresolution on the schemes of life which offer themselves to our choice, and inconstancy in pursuing them, are the greatest causes of all our unhappiness.

    Addison.

    Irresolution and mutability are often the faults of men whose views are wide, and whose imagination is vigorous and excursive.

    Dr. Johnson.

    Irresolution is a worse vice than rashness. He that shoots best may sometimes miss the mark; but he that shoots not at all can never hit it. Irresolution loosens all the joints of a state; like an ague, it shakes not this nor that limb, but all the body is at once in a fit. The irresolute man is lifted from one place to another; so hatcheth nothing, but adles all his actions.

    Feltham.