Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Delay
Delay always heeds danger.
Cervantes—Don Quixote. Bk. IV. Ch. III.
Il fornito
Sempre con danno l’attender sofferse.
It is always those who are ready who suffer in delays.
Dante—Inferno. XXVIII. 98.
Unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem,
Non ponebat enim rumores ante salutem.
One man by delay restored the state, for he preferred the public safety to idle report.
Ennius—Quoted by Cicero.
With sweet, reluctant, amorous delay.
Homer—Odyssey. Bk. I. 1. Pope’s trans.
Nulla unquam de morte cunctatio longa est.
When a man’s life is at stake no delay is too long.
Juvenal—Satires. VI. 221.
Do not delay,
Do not delay: the golden moments fly!
Longfellow—Masque of Pandora. Pt. VII.
Ah! nothing is too late
Till the tired heart shall cease to palpitate.
Longfellow—Morituri Salutamus. St. 24.
Tolle moras—semper nocuit differre paratis.
Away with delay—it always injures those who are prepared.
Lucan—Pharsalia. I. 281.
Longa mora est nobis omnis, quæ gaudia differt.
Every delay that postpones our joys, is long.
Ovid—Heroides. XIX. 3.
Tardo amico nihil est quidquam iniquius.
Nothing is more annoying than a tardy friend.
Plautus—Pœnulus. III. 1. 1.
Quod ratio nequiit, sæpe sanavit mora.
What reason could not avoid, has often been cured by delay.
Seneca—Agamemnon. CXXX.
Omnis nimium longa properanti mora est.
Every delay is too long to one who is in a hurry.
Seneca—Agamemnon. CCCCXXVI.
Maximum remedium est iræ mora.
Delay is the greatest remedy for anger.
Seneca—De Ira. II. 28. (Same in Bk. III, with “dilatio” for “mora.”)
Delays have dangerous ends.
Henry VI. Pt. I. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 33.
Delay leads impotent and snail-paced beggary.
Richard III. Act IV. Sc. 3. L. 53.
Pelle moras; brevis est magni fortuna favoris.
Away with delay; the chance of great fortune is short-lived.
Silius Italicus—Punica. IV. 734.
Late, late, so late! but we can enter still.
Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now.
Tennyson—Idylls of the King. Guinevere. L. 169.
And Mecca saddens at the long delay.
Thomson—The Seasons. Summer. L. 979.
Like St. George, always in his saddle, never on his way.
Proverb quoted in Clement Walker’s History of Independency. The Mysterie of the Two Juntos.