quotations about procrastination
Beware of the thief of time, procrastination; this day is as convenient as tomorrow; this day is yours, tomorrow is not; this day is a day of mercy, tomorrow may be a day of doom.
EDWARD IRVING
For the Oracles of God: Four Orations
True wisdom advises no delay; true interest will not procrastinate.
CHARLES HAMMOND
attributed, Day's Collacon
Do you know what happens when you give a procrastinator a good idea? Nothing!
DONALD GARDNER
attributed, The Psychology of Procrastination
Procrastination is the foundation of all disasters.
PANDORA POIKILOS
Excuse Me, My Brains Have Stepped Out
Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.
MARTHE TROLY-CURTIN
Phrynette Married
I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.
DOUGLAS ADAMS
The Salmon of Doubt
Don't fool yourself that important things can be put off til tomorrow; they can be put off forever, or not at all.
MIGNON MCLAUGHLIN
attributed, The Psychology of Procrastination
As a writer, I need an enormous amount of time alone. Writing is 90 percent procrastination: reading magazines, eating cereal out of the box, watching infomercials. It's a matter of doing everything you can to avoid writing, until it is about four in the morning and you reach the point where you have to write. Having anybody watching that or attempting to share it with me would be grisly.
PAUL RUDNICK
attributed, Pinterest
Procrastination is your body telling you you need to back off a bit and think more about what you are doing.
JAMES ALTUCHER
attributed, "#MondayMotivation", PayScale, May 16, 2016
Almost all indolence and fickleness spring from procrastination; while thinking about what we shall do, and doubting whether we can do it or not, we allow the opportunity of action to slip through our hands. What thou doest, do quickly, is the maxim of human as well as of divine wisdom.
GEORGE GILFILLAN
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, 1854
The truth is that we live out our lives putting off all that can be put off; perhaps we all know deep down that we are immortal and that sooner or later all men will do and know all things.
JORGE LUIS BORGES
"Funes El Memorioso", Ficciones
For two weeks I have been putting off something of importance that should be done. This is not the exception that proves the rule. It is the rule itself, and I am determined that this rule must be changed. Why didn't I set myself the task yesterday and do it? It isn't a hard thing to do once I start it. It is only the starting that troubles and this has been a trouble of mine for so many years that I am trying to analyze my own failure in the hope that a correct analysis may help somebody else who is troubled in like manner. What I should have done yesterday was easily the most important thing that confronted me and it is just as important today. Therefore, I cannot offer the excuse that something more important intervened. Such an excuse would be unworthy of my desire to be honest with myself. The task was not one that should have been set off for a more opportune time. Yesterday was the ideal time. But I did something else. The fact that I can't find nearly as much fault with myself today for my neglect of yesterday as I would have found with myself a few years ago for a similar neglect is the reason why I am analyzing my condition. I am in danger. I must settle once and for all, upon the reason and make it impossible for similar neglects to occur in the future.
WILLIAM HENRY MCMASTERS
"On Why Not Yesterday?", Originality and Other Essays
Procrastination is the longest word in the language, but there's only one letter between its ends when they occupy their proper places in the alphabet.
GEORGE HORACE LORIMER
Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son
Procrastination is opportunity's natural assassin.
VICTOR KIAM
Going for It!
They who procrastinate and defer the business of life, in things in which it is in their power to effect, sink into stupid and abject slavery, and show themselves unworthy of the talents with which human nature is dignified.
SAMUEL CROXALL
attributed, Day's Collacon
I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.
JEROME K. JEROME
Three Men in a Boat
A day can really slip by when you're deliberately avoiding what you're supposed to do.
BILL WATTERSON
There's Treasure Everywhere: A Calvin and Hobbes Collection
Someday is not a day of the week.
PHIL MCGRAW
The 20/20 Diet: Turn Your Weight Loss Vision Into Reality
We are so scared of being judged that we look for every excuse to procrastinate.
ERICA JONG
Seducing the Demon: Writing for My Life
The strangest thing about procrastination is that the only thing standing between you and the joy of completing your work is ... you.
MELISSA RAYWORTH
"Apps to keep you on task", Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, June 6, 2016