Humorous Procrastination Quotes

“Procrastination: A hardening of the oughteries.”
Anonymous

“The sooner I fall behind, the more time I have to catch up.”
Anonymous

“Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week.”
Anonymous

“Procrastination is like masturbation. At first it feels good, but in the end you’re only screwing yourself.”
Anonymous

“Procrastinators: Leaders of Tomorrow.”
Anonymous (but available on a t-shirt)

“The two rules of procrastination: 1) Do it today. 2) Tomorrow will be today tomorrow.”
Anonymous

“I have not yet begun to procrastinate.”
Anonymous

“You know you’re gettin old when it takes too much effort to procrastinate.”
Anonymous

“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.”
Douglas Adams

“We don’t have anything as urgent as mañana in Ireland.”
Stuart Banks

“Anyone can do any amount of work providing it isn’t the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment.”
Robert Benchley

“Procrastination is reading all the quotes on this page when you have a huge report due tomorrow.”
R. T. A. Birektt (wish I thought of this one)

“A perfect method for adding drama to life is to wait until the deadline looms large.”
Alyce P. Cornyn-Selby

“Nothing separates the generations more than music. By the time a child is eight or nine, he has developed a passion for his own music that is even stronger than his passions for procrastination and weird clothes.”
Bill Cosby (1986, Fatherhood)

“We went to lunch and were talking about procrastination and the waitress overheard us and she said, ‘I have a problem with procrastination, too.’ I said ‘Really?… Get my sandwich.’”
Ellen DeGeneres

“Procrastinate now, don’t put it off.”
Ellen DeGeneres

“Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday and avoiding today.”
Wayne Dyer

“One of the greatest labor-saving inventions of today is tomorrow.”
Vincent T. Foss

“Work is the greatest thing in the world, so we should always save some of it for tomorrow.”
Don Herold

“I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.”
Jerome K. Jerome (Three Men in a Boat, 1889)

“Procrastination gives you something to look forward to.”
Joan Konner

“I’m going to stop putting things off, starting tomorrow!”
Sam Levenson

“Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.”
Don Marquis (1927, Certain Maxims of Archy)

“If a thing’s worth doing, its worth doing late.”
Frederick Oliver

“Live, drink, be merry, love the reeling midnight through,
For tomorrow ye may die, but alas we never do.”
Dorothy Parker

“Somebody was using the pencil.”
Dorothy Parker (on missing a deadline)

“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”
C. Northcote Parkinson (1958)

“Procrastination is my sin.
It brings me naught but sorrow.
I know that I should stop it.
In fact, I will – tomorrow!”
Gloria Pitzer

“If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he next comes to drinking and sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination.”
Thomas Quincey

“Like many people, I started blogging out of an urgent need to procrastinate.”
Harold Ross, The New Yorker

“There’s nothing to match curling up with a good book when there’s a repair job to be done around the house.”
Joe Ryan

“Do nothing by halves which can be done by quarters.”
F. R. Scott (From his poem, W.L.M.K.)

“Drug use and procrastination often go hand in tourniquet.”
Will Self (Junk Mail, 1995)

” ‘Never put off tomorrow what you can do today.’ Under the influence of this pestilent morality, I am forever letting tomorrow’s work slop into today’s and doing painfully and nervously today what I could do quickly and easily tomorrow.”
J. A. Spender (The Comments of Bagshot)

“It is better to have loafed and lost than never to have loafed at all.”
James Thurber

“My parents told me I’d never amount to anything because I procrastinated too much. I told them, ‘Just you wait’.”
Judy Tenuta

“Never put off till tomorrow, what you can do the day after tomorrow.”
Mark Twain

Inspirational

“Procrastination is the grave in which opportunity is buried.”
Anonymous

“When there is a hill to climb, don’t think that waiting will make it smaller.”
Anonymous

“Nothing in the world is as urgent, that it couldn’t become even more urgent tomorrow.”
Anonymous

“What can be done at any time is never done at all.”
English Proverb

“Postpone not a good action.”
Irish Proverb

“What may be done at any time will be done at no time.”
Scottish Proverb

“Anger is the only thing to put off till tomorrow.”
Slovakian proverb

“Don’t procrastinate. Putting off an unpleasant task until tomorrow simply gives you more time for your imagination to make a mountain out a possible molehill. More time for anxiety to sap your self-confidence. Do it now, brother, do it now.”
Science Digest, 1949

“Do it now, brother, do it now. What’s the use raisin’ a row? If you’ ve got anything to do, do it. An’ that’s all there is to it. If you’ve got to chop wood, chop it; If you’ve got to stop drinkin’, stop it.”
Opening Stanza to “Do it Now,” From Retail Clerks International Association, 1913

“Every thing in human character goes to wreck, under the reign of procrastination, while prompt action gives to all things a corresponding and proportional life and energy.”
William A. Alcott (1852, The Young Women’s Guide)

“Much of the stress that people feel doesn’t come from having too much to do. It comes from not finishing what they started.”
David Allen

“Waiting is a trap. There will always be reasons to wait – The truth is, there are only two things in life, reasons and results, and reasons simply don’t count.”
Robert Anthony

“Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand—and melting like a snowflake.”
Francis Bacon, Sr, 1561-1626

“No task is a long one but the task on which one dare not start. It becomes a nightmare.”
Charles Baudelaire

“In putting off what one has to do, one runs the risk of never being able to do it.”
Charles Baudelaire

“We shall never have more time. We have, and have always had, all the time there is. No object is served in waiting until next week or even until tomorrow. Keep going day in and day out. Concentrate on something useful. Having decided to achieve a task, achieve it at all costs.”
Arnold Bennett

“Space we can recover, time never.”
Napoleon Bonaparte

“This is as true in everyday life as it is in battle: we are given one life and the decision is ours whether to wait for circumstances to make up our mind, or whether to act, and in acting, to live.”
General Omar Bradley

“Procrastination has robbed us of too many opportunities.”
Sarah Ban Breathnach

“How does a project get to be a year behind schedule? One day at a time.”
Fred Brooks

“Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its brevity.”
Jean de La Bruyère

“Don’t wait for someone to take you under their wing. Find a good wing and climb up underneath it.”
Frank C. Bucaro

“I don’t wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work.”
Pearl S. Buck

“Procrastination is the seed of self destruction.”
Matthew Burton

“Indulge in procrastination, and in time yon will come to this, that because a thing ought to be done, therefore you can’t do it.”
Charles Buxton

“Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take care of themselves.”
Dale Carnegie

“One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon – instead of enjoying the roses blooming outside our windows today.”
Dale Carnegie

“Delay always breeds danger; and to protract a great design is often to ruin it.”
Miguel De Cervantes

“By the streets of ‘by and by,’ one arrives at the house of ‘never’.”
Miguel De Cervantes

“None of us knows if we’ll live to see another day, how long we may have together, to know love, to experience tenderness, to share oneself with another. Once we know what we want, there is no time to waste, no need for hesitation, vacillation or delay. Just do it.”
Larry Chang

“Faith in to-morrow, instead of Christ, is Satan’s nurse for man’s perdition.”
George B. Cheever

“Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness; no laziness; no procrastination; never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.”
Lord Chesterfield

“It is an undoubted truth, that the less one has to do, the less time one finds to do it in.”
Lord Chesterfield

“The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to a close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.”
Winston Churchill (November, 1936)

“If you procrastinate when faced with a big difficult problem… break the problem into parts, and handle one part at a time.”
Robert Collier (1885-1950)

“Procrastination makes easy things hard, hard things harder.”
Mason Cooley

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”
Calvin Coolidge

“There are a million ways to lose a work day, but not even a single way to get one back.”
Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister

“If we accept and internalize the fact of our own mortality, then, by definition, we have to deal with the essential questions of how we live and spend our allotted time. We have to stop procrastinating, pretending that we have forever to do what we want to do and be what we long to be.”
Surya Das

“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.”
Walt Disney

“Procrastination is one of the most common and deadliest of diseases and its toll on success and happiness is heavy.”
Wayne Dyer (1997, The Ultimate Success Quotations Library), but also attributed to Wayne Gretzky

“Where duty is plain delay is both foolish and hazardous; where it is not, delay may be both wisdom and safety.”
Tryon Edwards (American Theologian)

“Watching for things to appreciate and expressing that appreciation immediately benefits both our relationships and us. It is taking care of business on a daily basis so that we have a better chance of not having a lot of unfinished business when we least expect it.”
Gail Pursell Elliott (The Dignity and Respect Lady)

“The dread of doing a task uses up more time and energy than doing the task itself.”
Rita Emmett

“By one delay after another they spin out their whole lives, till there’s no more future left for them.”
Robert L’Estrange

“Conditions are never just right. People who delay action until all factors are favorable are the kind who do nothing.”
William Feather

“Procrastination is a sin of lawyers, trial judges, reporters, appellate judges, in brief, everyone connected with the machinery of criminal law.”
Macklin Fleming

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
Anne Frank

“Work while it is called today, for you know not how much you may be hindered tomorrow. One today is worth two tomorrows; never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today.”
Benjamin Franklin

“You may delay, but time will not.”
Benjamin Franklin

“Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.”
Benjamin Franklin

“Do you know what happens when you give a procrastinator a good idea? Nothing!”
Donald Gardner

“Lose this day loitering; t’will be the same old story tomorrow, and the next day more dilatory … Each indecision brings its own delays and days are lost lamenting o’er lost days.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Even if you’re on the right track – you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”
Arthur Godfrey

“Those who are late will be punished by life itself.”
Mikhail Gorbachev

“Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.”
Sydney Harris

“To procrastinate seems inherent in man, for if you do to-day that you may enjoy to-morrow it is but deferring the enjoyment; so that to be idle or industrious, vicious or virtuous, is but with a view of procrastinating the one or the other.”
Benjamin Robert Haydon

“Stop talking. Start walking.”
L.M. Heroux

“Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.”
Napoleon Hill

“Procrastination is the bad habit of putting of until the day after tomorrow what should have been done the day before yesterday.”
Napoleon Hill

“Delay is as hateful as it is dangerous.”
Thomas Holcroft

“Speech is conveniently located midway between thought and action, where it often substitutes for both.”
John Andrew Holms

“Perhaps the most valuable result of an education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not.”
Thomas Huxley

“So what do we do? Anything. Something. So long as we just don’t sit there. If we screw it up, start over. Try something else. If we wait until we’ve satisfied all the uncertainties, it may be too late.”
Lee Iacocca

“If I had to sum up in a word what makes a good manager, I’d say decisiveness. You can use the fanciest computers to gather the numbers, but in the end you have to set a timetable and act.”
Lee Iacocca

“Procrastination is the kidnapper of souls and the recruiting-officer of hell.”
Edward Irving

“When you have to make a choice and don’t make it, that in itself is a choice.”
William James

“Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.”
William James

“Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.”
Thomas Jefferson

“There are two cardinal sins from which all others spring: Impatience and Laziness.”
Franz Kafka

“Don’t wait for your “ship to come in,” and feel angry and cheated when it doesn’t. Get going with something small.”
Irene Kassorla

“Procrastination is opportunity’s natural assassin.”
Victor Kiam (Former CEO of Remington; 1992, Quotable Business)

“How soon not now, becomes never.”
Martin Luther King

“Every duty which is bidden to wait returns with seven fresh duties at its back.”
Charles Kingsley

“The trouble is that you think you have time.”
Jack Kornfield

“It is only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth – and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up – that we will begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it was the only one we had.”
Elizabeth Kǔbler-Ross

“You must not procrastinate. Rather, you should make preparations so that even if you did die tonight, you would have no regrets. If you develop an appreciation for the uncertainty and imminence of death, your sense of the importance of using your time wisely will get stronger and stronger.”
Dalai Lama (the 14th)

“A year from now you may wish you had started today.”
Karen Lamb

“The procrastinator is not only indolent and weak, but commonly, false, too; most of the weak are false.”
Johann Kaspar Lavater

“Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.”
Abraham Lincoln

“The leading rule for the lawyer, as for the man of every other calling, is diligence. Leave nothing for to-morrow which can be done to-day.”
Abraham Lincoln

“My evil genius Procrastination has whispered me to tarry ’til a more convenient season.”
Mary Todd Lincoln (June 1841, Her Life and Letters – 1972)

“Do not delay,
Do not delay: the golden moments fly!”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Putting off an easy thing makes it hard, and putting off a hard one makes it impossible.”
George H. Lorimer

“…who waits until circumstances completely favor his undertaking, will never accomplish anything.”
Martin Luther

“Tomorrow is the only day in the year that appeals to a lazy man.”
Jimmy Lyons

“Yesterday is a cancelled cheque. Tomorrow is a promissory note. Today is the only cash you have, so spend it wisely.”
Kim Lyons

“Procrastination in the beginning and precipitation towards the conclusion is the characteristic of such bodies.”
James Madison

“To be always intending to make a new and better life but never to find time to set about it is as…to put off eating and drinking and sleeping from one day to the next until you’re dead.”
Og Mandino (compare this with Archbishop John Tillotson’s quote)

“He who awaits much can expect little.”
Gabriel Garcia Marquez

“Don’t fool yourself that important things can be put off till tomorrow; they can be put off forever, or not at all.”
Mignon McLaughlin

“There are so many things that we wish we had done yesterday, so few that we feel like doing today.”
Mignon McLaughlin

“The time to begin most things is ten years ago.”
Mignon McLaughlin

“Don’t put off for tomorrow what you can do today because if you enjoy it today, you can do it again tomorrow.”
James A. Michener

“If you want to make an easy job seem mighty hard, just keep putting off doing it.”
Olin Miller

“Perception is strong and sight weak. In strategy it is important to see distant things as if they were close and to take a distanced view of close things.”
Miyamoto Musashi (The Book of Five Rings)

“They dwell on this terrible future and you resign yourselves to it for one reason, because that future doesn’t ask anything of you today.”
Nix (From the film Tomorrow Land)

“Procrastination has been called a thief,–the thief of time. I wish it were no worse than a thief. It is a murderer; and that which it kills is not time merely, but the immortal soul.”
William Nevins

“Procrastination is a way for us to be satisfied with second-rate results; we can always tell ourselves we’d have done a better job if only we’d had more time. If you’re good at rationaliziing, you can keep yourself feeling rather satisfied this way, but it’s a cheap happy. You’re whittling your expectations of yourself down lower and lower.”
Richard O’Connor

“Slaying the dragon of delay is no sport for the short-winded.”
Sandra Day O’Connor

“Procrastination is like a credit card: it’s a lot of fun until you get the bill.”
Christopher Parker

“Delay is the deadliest form of denial.”
C. Northcote Parkinson

“The really happy people are those who have broken the chains of procrastination, those who find satisfaction in doing the job at hand. They’re full of eagerness, zest, productivity. You can be, too.”
Norman Vincent Peale

“Until you value yourself, you will not value your time.
Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.”
M. Scott Peck

“Delaying gratification is a process of scheduling the pain and pleasure of life in such a way as to enhance the pleasure by meeting and experiencing the pain first and getting it over with. It is the only decent way to live.”
M. Scott Peck

“Indecisiveness and procrastination are the chosen ways of life for most people. They follow the course of least resistance, which is to do nothing. This provides a security blanket of never being wrong, never making mistakes, never being disappointed and never failing. But they will also never succeed.”
David People, Selling to the Top

“Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.”
Pablo Picasso

“Well arranged time is the surest mark of a well arranged mind.”
Sir Isaac Pitman

“Doing just a little bit during the time we have available puts you that much further ahead than if you took no action at all.”
Byron Pulsifer

“Often just by taking action, by doing something about the situation can relieve the stress and help correct the situation.”
Catherine Pulsifer

“Initiative – take it, rather than procrastinate.”
Catherine Pulsifer

“Don’t wait for extraordinary circumstance to do good; try to use ordinary situations.”
Charles Richter

“Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”
Will Rogers

“In a moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing to do. The worst thing you can do is nothing.”
Theodore Roosevelt

“The follies which a man regrets most, in his life, are those which he didn’t commit when he had the opportunity.”
Helen Rowland

“Nothing is so exhausting as indecision, and nothing so futile.”
Bertrand Russell

“Our greatest actions, or of good or evil, The hero’s and the murderer’s spring at once From their conception: O! how many deeds Of deathless virtue and immortal crime The world had wanted, had the actor said, I will do this to-morrow.”
John Russell

“Procrastination is, hands down, our favorite form of self-sabotage.”
Alyce P. Cornyn-Selby

“Depression turned my body, mind and soul into concrete; procrastination turned my heart into a block of dirty ice.”
Dolly Sen (The World is Full of Laughter)

“In delay there lies no plenty.”
William Shakespeare

“Defer no time; delays have dangerous ends.”
William Shakespeare (King Henry the Sixth, Part I )

“Delay leads impotent and snail-paced beggary.”
William Shakespeare (The Tragedy of King Richard the Third)

“The greatest thief this world has ever produced is procrastination, and he is still at large.”
Henry Wheelter Shaw

“We say we don’t have time to do this or do that. There’s plenty of time. The trick is to apply it. The greatest disease in the world today is procrastination.”
Red Skelton

“Lingering labors come to naught.”
Robert Southwell

“The habit of always putting off an experience until you can afford it, or until the time is right, or until you know how to do it is one of the greatest burglars of joy. Be deliberate, but once you’ve made up your mind–jump in.”
Charles R. Swindoll

“When you say, “Wait a moment,” you are bound by your karma; when you say “Yes I will,” you are free.”
Shunryu Suzuki

“I have spent my days stringing and unstringing my instrument, while the song I came to sing remains unsung.”
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941, Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature)

“During a very busy life I have often been asked, “How did you manage to do it all?” The answer is very simple. It is because I did everything promptly.”
Richard Tangye

“Procrastination usually results in sorrowful regret. Today’s duties put off until tomorrow give us a double burden to bear; the best way is to do them in their proper time.”
Ida Scott Taylor

“It’s a job that’s never started that takes the longest to finish.”
J. R. R. Tolkien (1892 – 1973)

“To be always intending to live a new life, but never to find time to set about it; this is as if a man should put off eating and drinking and sleeping from one day and night to another, till he is starved and destroyed.”
Archbishop John Tillotson (1630-1694) – Later attributed to Walter Scott and also see Og Mandino’s quote.

“The greatest amount of wasted time is the time not getting started.”
Dawson Trotman

“One of these days is none of these days.”
Attributed to both Henri Tubach and H. G. Bohn

“If we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready, we shall never begin.”
Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (Russian Writer, 1818-1883)

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.”
Mark Twain

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
Mark Twain

“There is no dallying with God .”
James Usher

“Procrastination is something best put off until tomorrow.”
Gerald Vaughan

“If you have goals and procrastination you have nothing. If you have goals and you take action, you will have anything you want.”
Thomas J. Vilord

“Procrastination is the fear of success. People procrastinate because they are afraid of the success that they know will result if they move ahead now. Because success is heavy, carries a responsibility with it, it is much easier to procrastinate and live on the ‘someday I’ll’ philosophy.”
Denis Waitley

“There is sometimes only a very fine line between deliberation and procrastination.”
Paul A. Walker, FCC Chairman

“Begin while others are procrastinating. Work while others are wishing.”
William Arthur Ward

“You can’t get much done in life if you only work on the days when you feel good.”
Jerry West, NBA Star

“He who hesitates is last.”
Mae West

“Do or do not do. There is no try.”
Master Yoda

“To think too long about doing a thing often becomes its undoing.”
Eva Young

“If you wait until all the lights are “green” before you leave home, you’ll never get started on your trip to the top.”
Zig Ziglar

Historical Procrastination Quotes (Pre -1750)

“Think of all the years passed by in which you said to yourself “I’ll do it tomorrow,” and how the gods have again and again granted you periods of grace of which you have not availed yourself. It is time to realize that you are a member of the Universe, that you are born of Nature itself, and to know that a limit has been set to your time. Use every moment wisely, to perceive your inner refulgence, or ’twill be gone and nevermore within your reach.”
Marcus Aurelius (Meditations, 2.4)

“We must be diligent today. To wait until tomorrow is too late. Death comes unexpectedly. How can we bargain with it?”
Buddha

“In the conduct of almost every affair slowness and procrastination are hateful”
Marcus Tullius Cicero (Philippics, 6.7)

“Anything worth putting off is worth abandoning altogether.”
Epictetus(AD 55 – AD 135)

“Delay not till tomorrow to be wise; tomorrow’s sun to thee may neve rise.”
William Congreve (1670-1729; Letter to Cobham)

“He who puts off nothing till tomorrow has done a great deal.”
Baltasar Graci (1601-56)

“Kabeer, that which you have to do tomorrow – do it today instead; and that which you have to do now – do it immediately! Later on, you will not be able to do anything, when death hangs over your head.”
Bhagat Kabeer Ji (1398-1518?)

“Nothing so perilous as procrastination”
John Lyly (1579, Eupheus)

“Do not put your work off till to-morrow and the day after; for a sluggish worker does not fill his barn, nor one who puts off his work: industry makes work go well, but a man who puts off work is always at hand-grips with ruin.”
Hesiod (Works and Days, l. 413)

“If I am not for myself, who is for me? When I am for myself, what am I? If not now, when?”
Rabbi Hillel (Pirkei Avot 1:14)

“Believe me, ‘I shall live’ is not the saying of a wise man. Tomorrow’s life is too late: live today.”
Martial (Epigrmmata)

“It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.”
Seneca

“Avoid delays: procrastination always does harm.”
Lucanus (Marcus Annaeus Lucan)

“He who begun has half done. Dare to be wise; begin.”
Horace

“He who postpones the hour of living is like the rustic who waits for the river to run out before he crosses.”
Horace

“Whilst we deliberate how to begin a thing, it grows too late to begin it.”
Quintillain (35-100; Institiutio Oratoria)

“Unhappy he who does this work adjourn, And to tomorrow would the search delay: His lazy morrow will be like today. But is one day of ease too much to borrow ? Yes, sure: for yesterday was once tomorrow.”
Perseus (34-62; The Fifth Satire )

“Time drinketh up the essence of every great and noble action, which ought to be performed, and is delayed in the execution.”
Vishnu Sarma (3rd century BC; Pancatantra)

“The man who is tardy acting where utmost speed is called for, rouses the ire of the gods who would set up obstacles in his way; you can bank on that.”
Vishnu Sarma (3rd century BC; Pancatantra)

“Death will be so quick to swoop on you; Gather merit till that moment comes! Wait till then to banish laziness? Then there’ll be no time, what will you do? “This I have not done. And this I’m only starting. And this – I’m only halfway through …” Then is the sudden coming of the Lord of Death, And oh, the thought ‘Alas, I’m finished.’”
Shantideva (The Way of the Boddhisattva )

“Deliberando saepe perit occasio [The opportunity often slips away while we deliberate on it].”
Syrus

“The next day is never so good as the day before.”
Syrus

“Procrastination is the thief of time; year after year it steals, till all are fled, and to the mercies of a moment leaves the vast concerns of an eternal state. At thirty, man suspects himself a fool; knows it at forty, and reforms his plan; at fifty chides his infamous delay, pushes his prudent purpose to resolve; in all the magnanimity of thought, resolves, and re-resolves, then dies the same.”
Edward Young (1742-46; Night Thoughts, The Complaint: Night 1)

“Be wise today; ’tis madness to defer. Next day the fatal precedent will plead; thus on, til wisdom is pushed our of life.”
Edward Young (1742-46; Night Thoughts, The Complaint: Night 1)

“Time flies, death urges, knells call, Heav’n invites, Hell threatens””
Edward Young (1742-46; Night Thoughts, The Complaint: Night 2 )

“Time destroyed is suicide, where more than blood is spilt.”
Edward Young (1742-46; Thoughts on Time )

“Tomorrow is the day when idlers work, and fools, reform, and mortal men lay hold on heaven.” Edward Young (Unsourced)

“Time wasted is existence; used is life.” Edward Young (Unsourced)

This list took me a very long time to compile, but check out Goodreads for a longer crowd-sourced compiliation