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Procrastination

1. Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week.

Anonymous.Spanish Proverb.

 

2. By and by never comes.

St. Augustine (354-430) Numidian Doctor of the Church and theologian. The Confessions    (400?), bk. 8, ch. 5, sect. 12

 

3. Nothing is worse than procrastination. When I look at 10 decisions I failed to make, there will be nine of them where I delayed.

Percy Barnevik (b. 1941) Swedish former C.E.O. of ABB. New York Times (May 1990)

 

4. No task is long one but the task on which one dare not start. It becomes a nightmare.

Charles Baudelaire (1821-67) French poet and critic. My Heart Laid Bare (1869)

 

5. How long halt ye between two opinions?

Bible. 1 Kings, 18:21

 

6. She felt weary and careworn, in the way one often does before the big job of work is tackled; that sense of premature or projected exhaustion that is the breeding-ground of all procrastination.

William Boyd (b. 1952) British novelist and scriptwriter. Brazzaville Beach (1990)

 

7. He who hesitates is poor.

Mel Brooks (b. 1926) U.S. director, actor, and screenwriter. Said by the failed Broadway producer Max Bailystock (Zero Mostel) to his tax accountant Leo Bloom (Gene Wilder). The Producers (1968)

 

8. Business neglected is business lost.

Daniel Defoe (1660-1731) English novelist and journalist. The Complete English Tradesman (1726), vol. 1

 

9. Most executives have learned that what one postpones, one actually abandons…timing is a most important element in/ the success of any effort. To do five years later what would have been smart to do five years earlier, is almost a sure recipe for frustration and failure.

Peter F. Drucker (b. 1909) U.S. management consultant and academic. The Effective Executive (1967), ch. 5

 

10. Procrastination brings loss; delay danger.

Desiderius Erasmus (1466?-1536) Dutch writer, scholar, and humanist. “Adolescens,” Colloquia (1518)

 

11. Lose no Time. Be always employ’d in something useful. Cut off all unnecessary Actions.

Benjamin Franklin (1706-90) U.S. politician, inventor, and journalist. The sixth of his 13 precepts for moral living. Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography (1793), pt. 2

 

12. A wrong decision isn’t forever; it can always be reversed. The losses from a delayed decision are forever; they can never be retrieved.

J.K. Galbraith (b. 1908) U.S. economist and diplomat. A life in our Times (1981)

 

13. Most companies don’t die because they are wrong; most die because they don’t commit themselves. They fritter away their momentum and their valuable resources while attempting to make a decision. The greatest danger is in standing still.

Andrew S. Grove (b. 1936) U.S. entrepreneur, author, and chairman of Intel Corporation. Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Company and Career (1996), ch. 8

 

14. In delay there is advantage.

Herodotus (484?-425? B.C.)Greek Historian. History (455? B.C.), bk. 7, ch. 10

 

15. Pusillanimity disposeth men to irresolution, and consequently to lose the occasions and fittest opportunities of action.

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) English philosopher and political theorist. Leviathan, or, The Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiastical and Civil (1651), pt. 1, ch. 11

 

16. While we’re talking, envious time is fleeing; seize the day, put no trust in the future.

Horace (65-8 B.C.) Roman poet and satirist. Odes (24-23 B.C.), bk. 1, no. 11, 1.7

 

17. Make your mind to act decidedly and take the consequences. No good is ever done in this world by hesitation.

Thomas Huxley (1825-95) British biologist. Aphorisms and Reflections (Henrietta A. Huxley, ed.; 1907)

 

18. There is no more miserable human being than the one in whom nothing is habitual but indecisions.

William James (1842-1910) U.S. psychologist and philosopher. The Principles of Psychology (1890), ch. 10

 

19. Procrastination is epidemic. The number of people who finish projects three weeks ahead of time you can count on one hand.

Jeffrey P. Kahn (b. 1953) U.S. psychiatrist.Quoted in Wall Street Journal (May 7, 1996)

 

20. If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend six sharpening the axe.

Abraham Lincoln (1809-65) U.S. president. Attrib.

 

21. Delays breed dangers.

John Lyly (1554?-1606) English writer and dramatist.Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit (1578)

 

22. procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday

Don Marquis (1878-1937) U.S. journalist and humorist. certain maxims of archie (1927)

 

23. Far from being the thief of Time, procrastination is the king of it.

Ogden Nash (1902-71) U.S. humorist and writer. “Long Live Delays” (1940)

 

24. To plan carefully is the safest delay.

PubliliusSyrus (fl. 1st century B.C.)Roman writer. Moral Sayings (1st century B.C.), no. 151

 

25. Nothing is so devastating as indecisions and nothing is so futile.

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) British philosopher and writer. The Conquest of Happiness (1930)

 

26. Defer no time; delays have dangerous ends.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English poet and playwright. Henry VI, Part One (1592), Act 3, Scene 3, 1. 16

 

27. Make me a beautiful word for doing things tomorrow; for that surely is a great and blessed invention.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) Irish writer and critic. Back to Methuselah (1921)

 

28. The time for hesitation is past- let us act!

Sophocles (496?-406 B.C.)Greek tragedian. Electra (430?-415? B.C.)

 

29. My rule is always to do the business of the day in the day.

Arthur Wellesley Wellington (1769-1852) British general and statesman. Quoted in Notes of Conversations with the Duke of Wellington (Philip Henry Stanhope; 1888)

 

30. Procrastination is the thief of time.

Edward Young (1683-1765) English poet. The Complaint, or Night Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immorality (1742-45)