Some Shots at "Haste"; It Maketh Waste, You Know

1916

Hurry usually leads to error.

The motto of Baron Plunket was "Hasten slowly." Churchill said, "The more haste ever the worst speed;" Boileau, "Hasten slowly and without losing heart put your work twenty times upon the anvil." "Haste maketh waste," said Heywood. "I'm always in haste, but never in a hurry," is from John Wesley. Richard III mumbled, "Sweet flowers are slow and weeds make haste." He would have made a successful farmer. This is Seneca: "Haste trips up its own heels, fetters and stops itself;" Tennyson, "Raw haste, half sister to delay."

Life for delays and doubts no time does give.
None ever yet made haste enough to live.

That bright couplet was written by Cowley. Listen to Bulwer-Lytton:

Business dispatched is business well done,
But business hurried is business ill done.

Comment: I wonder who said, "The faster I go the behinder I get."