5

I am looking for a proverb (short adage) for when one is already in a hurry but the situation makes the person wait even more.

Today I was in a hurry. I had to reach home at 2 o'clock but the driver of a local bus was driving very slowly and he was picking passengers up along the way. This later made me embarrassed at home. I had an urgent job at home. I reached home very late at 3:30. This happens to me. The more I am in hurry, the more a situation doesn't go my way.

I have another example. I was waiting for my friend today outside the gym. He told me he would come out in 20 minutes. He took almost one hour to come out of the gym. This made me late for finishing my own tasks at home. Also, the bike's tyre was also punctured. :).

I hope there is a proverb or short adage for this type of scenario. English is a very diverse language.

I have only one idea: every passing moment brings death. This might means things worsen over time.

Improve this question
New contributor
Dove is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering. Check out our Code of Conduct.
12
  • 1
    You could say that You're tripping over yourself or that the worsening lateness Adds insult to injury. Commented yesterday
  • 1
    Something between More haste less speed (trying to hurry things up can be counter-productive) and Murphy's Law Anything that can go wrong will go wrong (with the common implication ...go wrong at the worst possible time - when you're in a hurry). Commented yesterday
  • Lots of work to be done in editing this question. It's somehow wordy and contains grammatical errors. Commented yesterday
  • 1
    @SuhailNazirKhan Your imagination is better than mine. I think you're right. :) The question was filled with non-idiomatic stuff. Good for an advanced English test. Commented yesterday
  • 2
    Curiouser and curiouser - no white rabbit puns yet? The hurrier I go, the behinder I get. Commented 21 hours ago

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
8

There is haste makes waste.

Merriam-Webster says

used to say that doing something too quickly causes mistakes that result in time, effort, materials, etc., being wasted

It's also listed in Wiktionary

Being too hasty leads to wasteful mistakes.

Wiktionary also gives the variant great haste makes great waste.

Another idiom is more haste, less speed. This means that if you try and do things faster, you actually end up doing them more slowly.

Wiktionary:

When one is in a hurry, one often ends up having less success and completing a task more slowly.

Wiktionary notes that speed has the older sense of "success, luck" which informs this proverb - though with the play on words of speed also meaning "quickness".

The Latin equivalent, sometimes heard in English, is festina lente (Wikipedia), meaning literally "make haste slowly!"

Improve this answer
3
  • This isn't happening in either of the OP's examples. They didn't do anything wrong because they were in a hurry, it was other people seemingly conspiring against them. Commented yesterday
  • I think in the OP's examples there's an element of helplessness due to outward circumstances. It's nothing to do with their making mistakes, so this doesn't quite work. Commented yesterday
  • As other comments point out, these don’t fit the examples in the question body. But they are excellent for the question as phrased in the title. Commented 22 hours ago
4

I think Murphy's Law summarizes the two situations perfectly.

According to the Cambridge Dictionary:

the principle that if it is possible for something to go wrong, it will go wrong

The bus is always late but today when I was late it came on time - that's Murphy's law!

An extension of the original Murphy's Law is called Finagle's Law, which states:

Anything that can go wrong, will—at the worst possible moment

Improve this answer
10
  • 1
    More like the extended version, which adds "and at the worst possible time". Commented yesterday
  • 2
    @Dove More of an empirical observation, which is used in these types of situations. If you're looking for a proverb, when it rains, it pours is s close fit to the situations in the question. Commented yesterday
  • 1
    @SuhailNazirKhan If you click on the votes figure you will see you have no downvotes (as at the time of this comment, anyway). Someone may have retracted an upvote. Commented yesterday
  • 1
    I was the first to upvote this answer. +1 for the shortest phrase, "Murphy's Law" Commented yesterday
  • 1
    An epigram for 'when one bad thing happens it causes a chain -reaction of bad things has already been closed as a duplicate. The only argument for this question being different is the 'hurrying leading to even more wasted time' factor, which would need addressing directly ... Murphy's Law is too general here. Commented yesterday
1

Martin Manser, The Facts on File Dictionary of Proverbs (2002) includes the following entry for always in a hurry, always behind, which is quite similar in meaning to "more haste, less speed":

always in a hurry, always behind When you try to do things too quickly, you work less efficiently and ultimately take longer: Bearing in mind the saying "Always in a hurry, always behind," I made an effort to slow down and work more methodically. The proverb was first recorded in 1948 in a U.S. proverb collection.

The 1948 proverb collection that Manser cites is Burton Stevenson, The Home Book of Proverbs, Maxims and Familiar Phrases. The earliest in-the-wild occurrence of the proverb that I could find in a Chronicling America newspaper database search was from "Why Vernon Was Always Late Getting to School," in the Washington [D.C.] Times (November 17, 1926):

When the teacher left she knew that Vernon lived in a topsy-turvy house. There was no system, no regularity about anything Mother and daughter rushed from one task or pastime to another—always in a hurry and always behind time.

But similar expressions go back to the 1850s. From an untitled item in the Baton Rouge [Louisiana] Morning Comet (February 13, 1856):

Don't be in a Hurry.—It's no sort of use. We never knew of a fellow who was always in a hurry, that wasn't always behind hand. They are proverbial, all over the world, for bringing nothing at all to pass.

Improve this answer
2
  • This has nothing to do with how efficiently the person in a hurry is working. Commented 14 hours ago
  • @Barmar It has a conditional meaning: the more you hurry the more you fall behind. So the more you hurry the less efficient you are. Commented 10 hours ago

You must log in to answer this question.

Start asking to get answers

Find the answer to your question by asking.

Ask question

Explore related questions

See similar questions with these tags.