Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Related Quotes

Jean de La Bruyère

When it is our duty to do an act of justice it should be done promptly. To delay is injustice.

Character | Delay | Duty | Injustice | Injustice | Justice |

Publius Syrus

Nothing is benefited by delay except anger.

Anger | Character | Delay | Nothing |

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton

Oratory, like drama, abhors lengthiness; like the drama, it must keep doing. It avoids, as frigid, prolonged metaphysical soliloquy. Beauties themselves, if they delay or distract the effect which should be produced on the audience, become blemishes.

Delay | Oratory | Wisdom |

Samuel Butler

Our latest moment is always our supreme moment. Five minutes delay in dinner now is more important that a great sorrow ten years gone.

Delay | Important | Sorrow | Wisdom |

John Cage, fully John Milton Cage, Jr.

Food, one assumes, provides nourishment; but Americans eat it fully aware that small amounts of poison have been added to improve its appearance and delay its putrefaction.

Appearance | Delay |

M. Scott Peck, fully Morgan Scott Peck

To be organized and efficiently, to live wisely, we must daily delay gratification and keep an eye on the future; yet to live joyously we must also possess the capacity, when it is not destructive, to live in the present and act spontaneously.

Capacity | Delay | Future | Present |

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Let no one when young delay to study philosophy, nor when he is old grow weary of his study. For no one can come too early or too late to secure the health of his soul.

Delay | Health | Philosophy | Soul | Study | Old |

Ted Sorensen, fully Theodore Chalkin "Ted" Sorensen

In the White House, the future rapidly becomes the past; and delay is itself a decision.

Decision | Delay | Future | Past |

Herman E. Daly

Even if we could grow our way out of the crisis and delay the inevitable and painful reconciliation of virtual and real wealth, there is the question of whether this would be a wise thing to do. Marginal costs of additional growth in rich countries, such as global warming, biodiversity loss and roadways choked with cars, now likely exceed marginal benefits of a little extra consumption. The end result is that promoting further economic growth makes us poorer, not richer.

Delay | Global | Growth | Inevitable | Little | Question | Reconciliation | Wise | Loss | Crisis |

John F. Kennedy, fully John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy

One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free. They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice. They are not yet freed from social and economic oppression. And this nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free.

Delay | Will |

L. P. Jacks, fully Lawrence Pearsall Jacks

Speech is insufficient to utter the last things; and this troubles it not, because the last things may be heard speaking for themselves. At last, after long delay the wondering soul gives form to that which is stirring within it and produces its works art and song and mighty deeds.

Art | Delay | Soul | Troubles | Art |

Milarepa, fully Jetsun Milarepa NULL

The affairs of the world will go on forever. Do not delay the practice of meditation.

Delay | Practice | Will | World |

Nāgārjuna, fully Acharya Nāgārjuna NULL

Property is unstable, and youth perishes in a moment. Life itself is held in the grinning fangs of Death, yet men delay to obtain release from the world. Alas, the conduct of mankind is surprising.

Conduct | Delay | Life | Life | Mankind | Men | Youth | Youth |

Ennius, fully Quintus Ennius NULL

One man by delay restored the state, for he preferred the public safety to idle report.

Delay | Man | Public |

William Rees and Mathis Wackernagel

The Earth's biophysical systems are large, complex, self-organizing entities. This means there is typically a long lag time between economic cause and ecological effect. (For example, whatever global warming we may already have experienced is not the result of today's levels of greenhouse gases but rather the levels reached perhaps 40 years ago; even though CFC production may be winding down, ozone depletion may worsen for a decade and it may be a half century or more before stratospheric ozone returns to normal.) Thus, the temptation to wait until we are certain that a particular trend is fatal, dangerous or simply uneconomic before deciding on corrective action leads us into an ecological trap. At best, the delay simply further entrenches our unsustainable lifestyles, making change the more difficult; at worst, it will be too late to do anything to reverse the trend.

Action | Cause | Change | Delay | Global | Means | Temptation | Time | Will | Temptation |

Rabbinical Proverbs

Study to-day, delay not.

Delay |