Lao Tzu Quotes

Thinking to get at once all the gold the goose could give, he killed it and opened it only to find-nothing.

The hastening of any undertaking begets error, from which great losses are wont to come.

By being impatient, matters are damaged and great works cannot be done

I've always zoomed through life in a vain attempt to keep up with my sprinting brain. If I have to choose between doing something quickly and doing it right, I often select the speedier option.

He takes the second step before the first

Haste is blind and improvident.

We may outrun By violent swiftness And lose by over-running.

Haste is always ungraceful.

Too great haste leads us to error.

Haste in every business brings failures.

I was in too much haste, and now have no time left. I traded all the sunlight and the cities and the distant lands for a handful of power, for a shadow, for the dark.

Being in a hurry. Getting to the next thing without fully entering the thing in front of me. I cannot think of a single advantage I've ever gained from being in a hurry. But a thousand broken and missed things, tens of thousands, lie in the wake of all the rushing.... Through all that haste I thought I was making up time. It turns out I was throwing it away.

All human errors are impatience, a premature breaking off of methodical procedure, an apparent fencing-in of what is apparently at issue.

Haste trips up its own heels, fetters and stops itself.

Hurry ruins saints as well as artists. They want quick success, and they are in such a hurry to get it that they cannot take time to be true to themselves. And when the madness is upon them, they argue that their very haste is a species of integrity.

All disgrace smells alike. Differences in ruin are only matters of degree.

Give time and permit a short delay, impetuosity ruins everything.

If we all leap before we crawl, we might fall.

When the record book on you is finished, let it show your wins and losses. But don't let it show you didn't try.

Who hesitate and falter life away, and lose tomorrow the ground won today.

The party that negotiates in haste is often at a disadvantage.

Each thing I do, I rush through, so I can do something else.

What is destructive is impatience, haste, expecting too much too fast.

A lack of patience in trifling matters might lead to the disruption of great project.