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Modern life is all about speed and hurry

• This strange disease of modern life, with its sick hurry, its divided aims. Matthew Arnold
• Haste,  Busyness,  Patience,  Simple living

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Often, we’re not sure where we’re going but we’re determined to break a speed record getting there

• America is a country that doesn’t know where it is going but is determined to set a speed record getting there. Laurence J. Peter
• The West has made people too time-conscious, not knowing where they are going but speeding to get there because time is short. Rajneesh

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We rush to save time, then often end up killing the time we save

• It has been left to our generation to discover that you can move heaven and earth to save five minutes and then not have the faintest idea what to do with them when you have saved them. E.M. Joad
• Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save. Will Rogers
• Modern man thinks he loses something–time–when he does not do things quickly. Yet he does not know what to do with the time he gains–except kill it. Erich Fromm

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Often the hurry in our lives is simply a manifestation of fear and stress

• Hurry: A visible form of worry   Arnold Glasgow
• Hurry is a manifestation of fear; he who fears not has plenty of time. If you act with perfect faith in your own perceptions of truth, you will never be too late or too early; and nothing will go wrong. Wallace D. Wattles
• Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency.  Natalie Goldberg, Wild Mind
• The feeling of being hurried is not usually the result of living a full life and having no time. It is, rather, born of a vague fear that we are wasting our life.  Eric Hoffer
• Fear,  Stress

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The truth is that life is too short and precious to waste it on speed

• Life is already too short to waste on speed. Edward Abbey
• I have no time to be in a hurry. Henry David Thoreau
• There is more to life than increasing its speed. Mohandas K. Gandhi

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By rushing, you increase your stress levels

• Chronic speediness has many bad effects: It activates the same general stress-response system that evolved in the brain to protect us from charging lions, which releases nerve- jangling hormones like adrenaline and cortisol, weakens your immune system, and wears down your mood. It puts the alarm system of the brain on red alert, scanning for threats and often overreacting. Have you ever noticed that when you speed up, you’re quicker to find things to worry or get irritated about?   Rick Hanson
• Are you aware that rushing toward a goal is a sublimated death wish? It’s no coincidence we call them ‘deadlines.’  Tom Robbins
• Being in a hurry is the father of stress and worry. Mokokoma Mokhonoana
• Stress

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By rushing, you waste precious energy and tire quickly

• Take time for all things: great haste makes great waste. Benjamin Franklin
• Don’t rush. Go slowly. Be present. Rushing through our days causes difficulties and extra effort. Leo Babauta
• Haste makes waste, no less in life than in housekeeping. Henry David Thoreau
• Haste makes waste. John Heywood
• He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes; With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder. William Shakespeare
• Over haste makes certain waste. Proverb
• Energy management,  Tiredness and fatigue

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By rushing, you end up being ineffective and taking longer

• Haste is slow. Alexander Pope
• Haste makes Work which Caution prevents. William Penn
• Haste manages all things badly. Latin Proverb
• The hurrier I go, the behinder I get. Lewis Carroll
• He gets through too late who goes too fast. Publilius Syrus
• We may outrun, by violent swiftness, that which we run at, and lose by over-running. William Shakespeare
• The more haste, ever the worst speed. Charles Churchill
• Too great haste leads us to error. Jean Baptiste Poquelin Moliere
• To do two things at once is to do neither. Publilius Syrus
• Unreasonable haste is the direct road to error. Jean Baptiste Poquelin Moliere
• More haste worse speed. Proverb
• The haste of a fool is the slowest thing in the world.  Thomas Shadwell
• Error is ever the sequence of haste. Arthur Wellesley
• Haste trips its own heels, and fetters and stops itself. Seneca
• Rapidity does not always mean progress, and hurry is akin to waste. The old fable of the hare and the tortoise is just as good now, and just as true, as when it was first written. Charles A. Stoddard
• To suffer the penalty of too much haste, which is too little speed. Plato
• There is one that toileth and laboureth, and maketh haste, and is so much the more behind. Jesus Ben Sirach (190 B.C)
• One of the great disadvantages of hurry is that it takes such a long time. G.K. Chesterton
• There’s always a way if you’re not in a hurry. Paul Theroux
• Those in a hurry do not arrive. Zen Wisdom

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By rushing, you close off your connection to your higher faculties

• So surely as you find yourself in the mental attitude of haste, just so surely may you know that you are out of the mental attitude of greatness. Hurry and fear will instantly cut your connection with the universal mind. Wallace D. Wattles
• If you’re having difficulty coming up with new ideas, then slow down. For me, slowing down has been a tremendous source of creativity. It has allowed me to open up — to know that there’s life under the earth and that I have to let it come through me in a new way. Creativity exists in the present moment. You can’t find it anywhere else. Natalie Goldberg
• Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. Henry David Thoreau

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By rushing, you forget your sense of where you’re going and why

• Slow down and enjoy life. It’s not only the scenery you miss by going too fast; you also miss the sense of where you are going and why.  Eddie Cantor
• Today we live in a world that judges its achievements by speed and busyness. … We are so busy making things happen that we have little time left to think about the value of what is happening. We urgently need people who concentrate on the meaning of life rather than simply the speed. Joan Chittister
• While you’ll feel compelled to charge forward it’s often a gentle step back that will reveal to you where you are and what you truly seek.  Rasheed Ogunlaru
• Purpose,  Meaning

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By rushing, you lose touch with yourself and what’s truly important

• We are naturally reverent beings, but much of our natural reverence has been torn away from us because we have been born into a world that hurries. There is no time to be reverent with the earth or with each other.  We are all hurrying into progress.  And for all our hurrying we lose sight of our true nature a little more each day.  Macrina Wiederkehr
• The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone. George Eliot

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By rushing, you lose touch with truth

• Truth is confirmed by inspection and delay; falsehood by haste and uncertainty. Publius Cornelius Tacitus
• Truth

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By rushing, you miss out on the beauty of life

• I regret less the road not taken than my all-fired hurry along the road I took. Robert Brault
• Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop to look around once in a while you could miss it. From the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
• Beauty

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By rushing, you hurry past happiness and pleasure

• Plenty of people miss their share of happiness, not because they never found it, but because they didn’t stop to enjoy it. William Feather
• Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it. Soren Kierkegaard
• Happiness,  Pleasure

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By rushing, you can damage your life and relationships

• In our rushing, bulls in china shops, we break our own lives. Ann Voskamp
• In our haste to deal with the things which are wrong, let us not upset the things which are right.

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By rushing, you often end up repenting at leisure

• Grief walks upon the heels of pleasure; married in haste, we repent at leisure. William Congreve
• Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure. Lord Byron
• He bites his tongue who speaks in haste. Turkish Proverb

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By rushing, you fall prey to rashness

• Rash: Characterized by or resulting from ill-considered haste or boldness. Freedictionary.com
• Haste and rashness are storms and tempests, breaking and wrecking business; but nimbleness is a full, fair wind, blowing it with speed to the heaven. Thomas Fuller
• Rashness

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By rushing, you sometimes even risk your life

• What good is speed if the brain has oozed out on the way? Saint Jerome
• Hasten slowly and ye shall soon arrive. Milarepa

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The greatest irony is that by rushing, you often get nowhere

• If you insist on being in a hurry, you’ll move very quickly — and often get nowhere. Take a breath. Find your peace.  Neale Donald Walsch
• The hurrier I go, the behinder I get.
• Take time for all things: great haste makes great waste.  Benjamin Franklin
• A hasty man drinks his tea with a fork. Chinese Proverb
• Doing more things faster is no substitute for doing the right things.
• Haste does not result in prosperity. Swahili Proverb
• One of the most pernicious effects of haste is obscurity. Samuel Johnson

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Consciously slow down…

• Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves – slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future. Live the actual moment. Thich Nhat Hanh
• Instead, try going slowly. This is the true tempo of an effortless life, and, ironically, it isn’t easy for many people. Leo Babauta
• Smile, breathe and go slowly. Thich Nhat Hanh
• Don’t rush, go slowly, and be. Leo Babauta
• If you complain about the world moving too fast, slow down. Mike Dolan
• I need neither future nor past, but to learn to take today not too fast. Jeb Dickerson
• Nothing can be more useful to you than a determination not to be hurried. Henry David Thoreau
• I don’t have an answer for the hurry sickness afflicting our society and our souls. But I do trust that the how-to-stop-it is within you, and you can change your pace if you want to. Sue Patton Thoele
• Never hurry. Take plenty of exercise. Always be cheerful. Take all the sleep you need. You may expect to be well. James Freeman Clarke
• Equanimity

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… and keep a calm spirit

• Slow down. Calm down. Don’t worry. Don’t hurry. Trust the process. Alexandra Stoddard
• Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset. St. Francis de Sales
• Wherever I go in the midst of movement and activity, I carry my stillness with me. Deepak Chopra
• Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. Max Ehrmann
• Calmness

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Think of life not as a race but a journey to be savoured

• And to this day I wish I had lingered a week or so…. But we stupid mortals, or most of us, are always in haste to reach somewhere else, forgetting that the zest is in the journey and not in the destination. Ralph D. Paine
• Don’t run through life so fast that you forget not only where you’ve been, but also where you are going. Life is not a race, but a journey to be savored each step of the way.  Nancy Simms
• There’s no race to the finish line; we all evolve according to our own unique pattern of unfoldment and, although it can be accelerated, it cannot be forced. Michael Bernard Beckwith
• Life is a journey,  Life is a process

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Slow down to give things your full attention

• Now, slow down and enjoy every task. Whatever you’re doing, whether it’s a work task or taking a shower or brushing your teeth or cooking dinner or driving to work, slow down. Try to enjoy whatever you’re doing. Try to pay attention, instead of thinking about other things. Be in the moment. This isn’t easy, as you will often forget. But find a way to remind yourself. Unless the task involves actual pain, there isn’t anything that can’t be enjoyable if you give it the proper attention. Leo Babauta
• Attention

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Slow down to be deliberate in each step

• There is no road too long to the man who advances deliberately and without undue haste; there are no honors too distant to the man who prepares himself for them with patience. Jean de la Bruyere
• Do nothing in haste, look well to each step, and from the beginning think what may be the end. Edward Whymper
• Therefore, let us not despair, but instead, survey the position, consider carefully the action we must take, and then address ourselves to our common task in a mood of sober resolution and quiet confidence, without haste and without pause. Arthur Henderson

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Slow down to savour things along the way

• You’re only here for a short visit. Don’t hurry, don’t worry. And be sure to smell the flowers along the way. Walter C. Hagen
• When was the last time you stopped to listen to the wind blow through the trees? Or stopped to listen to a river as it flowed past you, or the crickets and frogs and other living things as they make their music? When was the last time you listened– truly listened– to a favorite song, paying attention to the lyrics, the drums, the rhythm, the guitars or strings?  Tom Walsh
• And so taking the long way home through the market I slow my pace down. It doesn’t come naturally. My legs are programmed to trot briskly and my arms to pump up and down like pistons, but I force myself to stroll past the stalls and pavement cafes. To enjoy just being somewhere, rather than rushing from somewhere, to somewhere. Inhaling deep lungfuls of air, instead of my usual shallow breaths. I take a moment to just stop and look around me. And smile to myself. For the first time in a long time, I can, quite literally, smell the coffee.  Alexandra Potter
• Slow down and take the time to really see. Take a moment to see what is going on around you right now, right where you are.  You may be missing something wonderful.   Michael Thomas
• Savouring

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Slow down to examine things along the way for that’s where inspiration and creativity come from

• Art is the means we have of undoing the damage of haste. It’s what everything else isn’t. Theodore Roethke
• I think my work has to do with a sense that we are attempting, all the time, to create a logical, rational path through the day. To the left and right there are an amazing set of distractions that we usually can’t afford to follow. But the poet is willing to stop anywhere. . . . And it’s that willingness to slow down and examine the mysterious bits of fluff in our lives that is the poet’s interest. William Collins
• Remember the great adversity of art or anything else is a hurried life. Robert James Waller
• Inspiration,  Creativity

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Slow down to take a mindful breath

• If you could once make up your mind never to undertake more work than you can carry on calmly, quietly, without hurry or flurry… and if the instant you feel yourself growing nervous and out of breath, you would stop and take breath, you would find this simple common- sense rule doing for you what no prayers or tears could ever accomplish. Elizabeth Prentiss
• If you insist on being in a hurry, you’ll move very quickly — and often get nowhere. Take a breath. Find your peace. Neale Donald Walsch
• Smile, breathe and go slowly. Thich Nhat Hanh
• Mindfulness

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Slow down to rest and enjoy leisure

• I don’t know why it is we are in such a hurry to get up when we fall down. You might think we would lie there and rest for a while.  Max Eastman
• A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man’s life as in a book. Haste makes waste, no less in life than in housekeeping. Keep the time, observe the hours of the universe, not of the cars. Henry David Thoreau
• Rest and renewal,  Enjoyment

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Slow down to disengage from the rat race and simply be

• It is important from time to time to slow down, to go away by yourself, and simply be. Eileen Caddy
• But by taking the time away, getting myself off the treadmill, and just slowing down and learning, I felt I had so much more to give back. And maybe that was something that needed to happen for all of us. Lindsey Buckingham
• The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat. Lily Tomlin

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After all, nature doesn’t hurry so why should you?

• Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished. Lao Tzu
• Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day. A. A. Milne

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Slow down to make your decisions

• What do we tell our children? Haste makes waste. Look before you leap. Stop and think. Don’t judge a book by its cover. We believe that we are always better off gathering as much information as possible and spending as much time as possible in deliberation. Malcolm Gladwell
• Decision making

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Slow down but don’t lose your sense of the value of a minute

• To get all there is out of living, we must employ our time wisely, never being in too much of a hurry to stop and sip life, but never losing our sense of the enormous value of a minute. Robert Updegraff

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Slow down and everything worthwhile will catch up with you

• Slow down and everything you are chasing will come around and catch you. John De Paola
• If we would just slow down, happiness would catch up to us. Richard Carlson
• Learn to pause or nothing worthwhile will catch up with you. Doug King
• The earth belongs to anyone who stops for a moment, gazes, and goes on his way. Colette
• The Rabbi of Berdichev saw a man running down the street. He asked the man, “Why are you hurrying so?”  “I’m rushing to find my livelihood,” the man answered.     “And how do you know,” the rabbi asked, “that your livelihood is running ahead of you?  Maybe it’s behind you, and all you need to do is stop running and it will catch up to you.  Traditional Chassidic Jewish story

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Slow down and things will become clearer

• All things will be clear and distinct to the man who does not hurry; haste is blind and improvident. Livy
• One can only see clearly when one is going slowly. Quick motion creates a life-blur. Terri Guillemets
• Clarity

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Slow down and you’ll be calmer, healthier and happier

• For fast-acting relief, try slowing down. Lily Tomlin
• Happy is the person who can keep a quiet heart, in the chaos and tumult of this modern world. Patience Strong
• An unhurried sense of time is in itself a sort of wealth. Bonnie Friedman
• Health,  Happiness

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Slow down and time will become a friend

• Time is like that: cussed when we try to speed up, a dear friend when we slow down. Richard Koch
• Hurry is a manifestation of fear; he who fears not has plenty of time. If you act with perfect faith in your own perceptions of truth, you will never be too late or too early; and nothing will go wrong. Wallace D. Wattles
• Time

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Slow down and you’ll more fully appreciate the experience of living

• A slower-paced life means making time to enjoy your mornings, instead of rushing off to work in a frenzy. It means taking time to enjoy whatever you’re doing, to appreciate the outdoors, to actually focus on whoever you’re talking to or spending time with — instead of always being connected to a Blackberry or iPhone or laptop, instead of always thinking about work tasks and emails. It means single- tasking rather than switching between a multitude of tasks and focusing on none of them. Slowing down is a conscious choice, and not always an easy one, but it leads to a greater appreciation for life and a greater level of happiness.  Leo Babauta
• By no longer rushing through, you’re choosing to stop focusing so much of your energy on the wanting and yearning, the wishing it was done, the frustration with what hasn’t happened yet; and to make, instead, the most of every experience as it unfolds at its own pace. Nea Justice
• In the midst of it all, we become slaves to our to-do lists and become doers instead of beers. We give ourselves little or no time feel, to more fully experience much of our lives. We forget that our capacity to feel is the very essence of our vitality. Without feeling, we become zombies or robots, and after a while we are left with a vague sense that our lives are unfulfilled, empty, lacking purpose, and devoid of anything resembling vitality.  Anat Baniel
• So, this is what the slow lane is about, I realized. Sipping and savoring tiny moments, stopping the clock and slipping out of time, feeling my own heart begin to synchronize with the rhythms of nature and being in the presence of the sacred. Judith Rich
• Appreciation,  Embrace life

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Slow down and you’ll be less likely to stumble or fall

• Walk slowly at a relaxed pace and you will not stumble. The Tao
• Hasty climbers have sudden falls. English Proverb
• Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast. William Shakespeare
• Failure

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Slow down to let your soul catch up with your body

• In the deep jungles of Africa, a traveler was making a long trek. Natives had been engaged from a tribe to carry the loads. The first day they marched rapidly and went far.  The traveler had high hopes of a speedy journey.  But the second morning these jungle tribesmen refused to move.  For some strange reason they just sat and rested.  On inquiry as to the reason for this strange behavior, the traveler was informed that they had gone too fast the first day, and that they were now waiting for their souls to catch up with their bodies.  This whirling rushing life which so many of us live does for us what that first march did for those jungle tribesmen.  The difference:  they knew what they needed to restore life’s balance; too often we do not.  Lettie Cowman

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Slow down and good things will start to come to you

• All in good time.  Horace
• All things come to him who waits – provided he knows what he is waiting for. Woodrow T Wilson
• Slow down and everything you are chasing will come around and catch you. John De Paola

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Slow down by embracing a sense of time abundance

• Like time starvation, time abundance is a mind-set. Know that there is a reason for every season. Time abundance states you have more than enough time to get everything done that serves your ultimate purpose.  Christine Louise Hohlbaum
• Abundance

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Slow down by giving yourself enough time to get there

• It is of no use running; to set out betimes is the main point. Jean de Lafontaine
• Haste usually turns upon being late, and may be avoided by a habit like that of Lord Nelson, to which he ascribed his success in life, of always being ten minutes too early. Christian Bovee

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Slow down by learning from nature

• Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished. Lao Tzu
• Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there someday. A.A. Milne
• Nature thrives on patience; man on impatience. Paul Boese
• Nature

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Christine Louise Hohlbaum’s tips for slowing down

• ‘Ma’ is a Japanese term for the space between beats in music or theatrical performances. Give ‘ma’ a chance to show itself in your calendar by creating room for some breezy nothingness between appointments.
• Put away your watch every now and then to experience a timeless state of peace. Challenge yourself to go clock-free for a day.
• Invite flow into your life. Engage in activities that make you forget the time altogether such as painting, dance or making music.
• Eat mindfully. Take time between bites and chew slowly. Make eating a primary, not secondary activity.
• Let that call go to voicemail. Suspending your availability now and then helps you regain your center.
• Switch off your cell phone altogether. Turn it off from time to time to recharge from the world.
• Focus on one project at a time and close all other unrelated windows on your computer. Distractions can tug at your energy, leaving you feeling depleted.
• Make a choice to include time out to dock and visit ports other than work, family responsibilities and obligations. Make sure you have time for simple pleasures and joys.
• Instead of taking a half-day off, take a full one. Focus completely on relaxing activities such as a swing in the hammock or a leisurely stroll through the park.
• Slowing down does not mean you stop. It means becoming more mindful. Incorporate movement into your daily routine by taking the stairs instead of the elevator. It will do you good, body and soul.
• Source: Christine Louise Hohlbaum (The Power of Slow)

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• Hasten deliberately. Augustus Caesar
• Hasten slowly. Augustus Caesar
• Hasten slowly and ye shall soon arrive. Milarepa
• If you must be in a hurry, then let it be according to the old adage, and hasten slowly.  Saint Vincent De Paul
• Make haste slowly. Augustus Caesar
• Though I am always in haste, I am never in a hurry. John Wesley
• Be quick but don’t hurry. John Wooden

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There are those that advocate a bit of speed

• Speed, it seems to me, provides the one genuinely modern pleasure. Aldous Huxley
• Speed is scarcely the noblest virtue of graphic composition, but it has its curious rewards. There is a sense of getting somewhere fast, which satisfies a native American urge. James Thurber

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Some things are good to do in haste

• A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain. Samuel Johnson
• Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are travelling the dark journey with us. Oh be swift to love, make haste to be kind. Henri Frederic Amiel
• Make haste! The tide of Fortune soon ebbs. Silius Italicus
• Let us not be content to wait and see what will happen, but give us the determination to make the right things happen. Peter Marshall
• Let him who desires to see others happy, make haste to give while his gift can be enjoyed, and remember that every moment of delay takes away something from the value of his benefaction. Samuel Johnson
• Though I am always in haste, I am never in a hurry. John Wesley
• Sometimes the fool who rushes in gets the job done. Al Bernstein
• Haste is needful in a desperate case. William Shakespeare
• If you don’t hurry up and let life know what you want, life will damned soon show you what you’ll get. Robertson Davies
• Haste

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• The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.  Lily Tomlin
• Get out of my way! I’m in a hurry to get home and relax. Ashleigh Brilliant
• Have you ever noticed? Anybody going slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a moron. George Carlin
• Death is nature’s way of telling you to slow down.
• If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life. Oscar Wilde
• I’ll be with you in the squeezing of a lemon. Oliver Goldsmith
• Manuscript: something submitted in haste and returned at leisure. Oliver Herford
• Haste over nothing but catching fleas. Proverb
• I don’t like where I’m going and I don’t like where I’ve been. Why am I in a hurry? Bertolt Brecht
• A decision made in haste sometimes takes a long time to own up to. Linda Poindexter
• Do nothing in great haste, except catching fleas and running from a mad dog.
• Manuscript: something submitted in haste and returned at leisure. Oliver Herford

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