WIST Quotations

Chesterfield (Lord) -- Letter to his son, #121 (14 Apr 1747)

Dave — Thu, 14 Jan 2021 19:40:03 +0000

A man is fit for neither business nor pleasure, who either cannot, or does not, command and direct his attenti0on to the present object, and, in some degree, banish for that time all other objects from his thoughts. If at a ball, a supper, or a party of pleasure, a man were to be solving, in his own mind, a problem in Euclid, he would be a very bad companion, and make a very poor figure in that company; or if, in studying a problem in his closet, he were to think of a minuet, I am apt to believe that he would make a very poor mathematician. There is time enough for everything in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once; but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time.

Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773) English statesman, wit [Philip Dormer Stanhope]
Letter to his son, #121 (14 Apr 1747)
(Source)

~Proverbs and Sayings -- American proverb (New England)

Dave — Thu, 29 May 2014 13:06:05 +0000

The quickest way to do many things is to do one thing at a time.

Proverbs, Sayings, and Adages
American proverb (New England)

~Proverbs and Sayings -- Scottish Proverb

Dave — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 13:52:19 +0000

Many irons on the Fire, some must cool.

Proverbs, Sayings, and Adages
Scottish Proverb
(Source)

In James Kelly, A Complete Collection of Scottish Proverbs, M.93 (1721)

Publilius Syrus -- Sententiae [Moral Sayings], # 7 [tr. Lyman (1862)]

Dave — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 23:51:59 +0000

To do two things at once is to do neither.

Publilius Syrus (d. 42 BC) Assyrian slave, writer, philosopher [less correctly Publius Syrus]
Sententiae [Moral Sayings], # 7 [tr. Lyman (1862)]

Straczynski, J. Michael "Joe" -- Babylon 5, 1×01 “Midnight on the Firing Line” (26 Jan 1994)

Dave — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 12:45:46 +0000

IVANOVA: You’ll excuse me, but I’m in the middle of fifteen things, all of them annoying.

J. Michael (Joe) Straczynski (b. 1954) American screenwriter, producer, author [a/k/a "JMS"]
Babylon 5, 1×01 “Midnight on the Firing Line” (26 Jan 1994)