Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Haste
Festination may prove Precipitation;
Deliberating delay may be wise cunctation.
Sir Thomas Browne—Christian Morals. Pt. I. Sec. XXIII. (Paraphrasing Cæsar.)
Then horn for horn they stretch and strive;
Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive.
Burns—To a Haggis.
Festina lente.
Hasten deliberately.
Augustus Cæsar. Quoting a Greek Proverb, according to Aullus Gellius. X. 11. 5.
The more haste, ever the worst speed.
Churchill—The Ghost. Bk. IV. L. 1,162.
I’ll be with you in the squeezing of a lemon.
Goldsmith—She Stoops to Conquer. Act I. Sc. 2.
Sat cito, si sat bene.
Quick enough, if good enough.
St. Jerome—Epistle. LXVI. Par. 9. (Valler’s ed.) Quoted from Cato. Phrase used by Lord Eldon. In Twiss’s Life of Lord C. Eldon. Vol. I. P. 46.
Haste is of the Devil.
The Koran.
Le trop de promptitude à l’erreur nous expose.
Too great haste leads us to error.
Molière—Sganarelle. I. 12.
Stay awhile that we may make an end the sooner.
Attributed to Sir Amice Pawlet by Bacon. Apothegms. No. 76.
On wings of winds came flying all abroad.
Pope—Prologue to the Satires. L. 208.
Festinatio tarda est.
Haste is slow.
Quintus Curtius Rufus. IX. 9. 12.
Celerity is never more admired
Than by the negligent.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act III. Sc. 7. L. 25.
Nay, but make haste; the better foot before.
King John. Act IV. Sc. 2. L. 170.
Stand not upon the order of your going,
But go at once.
Macbeth. Act III. Sc. 4. L. 119.
Swifter than arrow from the Tartar’s bow.
Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 101.
He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes;
With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder.
Richard II. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 36.
It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden;
Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be
Ere one can say “It lightens.”
Romeo and Juliet. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 118.
Wisely, and slow; they stumble that run fast.
Romeo and Juliet. Act II. Sc. 3. L. 94.