This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"When it is our duty to do an act of justice it should be done promptly. To delay is injustice." - Jean de La Bruyère
"Delay of justice is injustice." - Walter Savage Landor
"Nothing is benefited by delay except anger." - Publius Syrus
"Valor grows by daring, fear by delay." - Publius Syrus
"Give not reins to your inflamed passions; take time and a little delay; impetuosity manages all things badly." - Statius, fully Publius Papinius Statius NULL
"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." - Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton
"Our latest moment is always our supreme moment. Five minutes delay in dinner now is more important that a great sorrow ten years gone." - Samuel Butler
"His eloquent tongue so well seconds his fertile invention that no one speaks better when suddenly called forth. His attention never languishes; his mind is always before his words; his memory has all its stock so turned into ready money that, without hesitation or delay, it supplies whatever the occasion may require." -
"Delay is always fatal (injurious)to those who are prepared." - Lucan, full name Marcus Annaeus Lucanus NULL
"Delay is the deadliest form of denial." - C. Northcote Parkinson, fully Cyril Northcote Parkinson
"Unhappy he who does his work adjourn, and to to-morrow would the search delay: his lazy morrow ill be like to-day." - Persius, fully Aulus Persius Flaccus NULL
"Delay is the most insidious form of denial." - Georges Clemenceau, fully Georges Benjamin Clemenceau
"You may delay, but Time will not." - Benjamin Franklin
"Delay is preferable to error." - Thomas Jefferson
"Truth is established by investigation and delay; falsehood prospers by precipitancy." - Tacitus, fully Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus NULL
"Do not delay; the golden moments fly!" - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
"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." - John Cage, fully John Milton Cage, Jr.
"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." -
"There is a large difference between indolent impatience of labor and intellectual impatience of delay, large difference between leaving things unfinished because we have more to do or because we are satisfied with what we have done." - John Ruskin
"Anger is the one thing made better by delay." - Latin Proverbs
"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." - M. Scott Peck, fully Morgan Scott Peck
"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." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"In the White House, the future rapidly becomes the past; and delay is itself a decision." - Ted Sorensen, fully Theodore Chalkin "Ted" Sorensen
"Delay not the health of thy soul through trust in friends or in neighbors; for men will forget sooner than thou thinkest; it is better to make provision betimes and send before thee some good than to trust in other men’s help." - Thomas Kempis, aka Thomas à Kempis, Thomas von Kempen, Thomas Haemerkken or Hammerlein or Hemerken or Hämerken
"To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; no more; and, by a sleep to say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep; to sleep: perchance to dream: aye, there's the rub; for in that sleep of death what dreams may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause. There's the respect that makes calamity of so long life; for who would bear the whips and scorns of time, the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, the pangs of disprized love, the law's delay, the insolence of office, and the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes, when he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life, but that the dread of something after death, the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns, puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of?" -
"His eloquent tongue so well seconds his fertile invention that no one speaks better when suddenly called forth. His attention never languishes; his mind is always before his words; his memory has all its stock so turned into ready money that, without hesitation or delay, it supplies whatever the occasion may require." - Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, sometimes known as Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam
"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." - Herman E. Daly
"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. " - John F. Kennedy, fully John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy
"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." - L. P. Jacks, fully Lawrence Pearsall Jacks
"The affairs of the world will go on forever. Do not delay the practice of meditation." - Milarepa, fully Jetsun Milarepa 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." - Nāgārjuna, fully Acharya Nāgārjuna NULL
"One man by delay restored the state, for he preferred the public safety to idle report." - Ennius, fully Quintus Ennius NULL
"Study to-day, delay not." - Rabbinical Proverbs
"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." - William Rees and Mathis Wackernagel
"When you see a tiger, you had better not delay your prediction of its probable behavior." - Richard Dawkins
"I want answers - we all want answers - as to why it took so long for rescue teams to get on the ground. There is no excuse for the days of delay and the inexplicable lack of coordination in the response effort... We knew the danger was coming. Yet, the government failed to respond. Lives were lost because the government failed to do its job." - Robert Byrd, fully Robert Carlyle Byrd
"It may be that we should stop putting so much emphasis in our own minds on the monetary value of a college education and put more emphasis on the intangible social and cultural values to be derived from learning. The time may be coming when we will have to start accepting the idea that education is life, not merely a preparation for it." - Seymour E. Harris
"Let me smile with the wise, and feed with the rich." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
"Indeed, he seemed to approach the grave as a hyperbolic curve approaches a straight line -- less directly as he got nearer, till it was doubtful if he would ever reach it at all." - Thomas Hardy
"Seldom ever was any knowledge given to keep, but to impart; the grace of this rich jewel is lost in concealment." - Wendell Phillips
"The history of all countries shows that the working class exclusively by its own effort is able to develop only trade-union consciousness." - Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
"You must never fear anything at all." - Vernon Howard, fully Vernon Linwood Howard
"Whoever in prayer can say, Our Father, acknowledges and should feel the brotherhood of the whole race of mankind." - Tryon Edwards
"In the eye of that Supreme Being to whom our whole internal frame is uncovered, motives and dispositions hold the place of actions." - Hugh Blair