Daily Inspiration Quote by Germaine Greer

Greer’s “Act quickly, think slowly” is a deliberately abrasive antidote to the modern virtue-signaling of “move fast and break things” and the self-soothing caution of “let’s be thoughtful.” Four words, two imperatives, and a built-in contradiction: it forces you to hold urgency and deliberation in the same hand without letting either become an excuse.

The intent is activist pragmatism. Greer isn’t granting permission for impulsiveness; she’s mocking the way “thinking” gets weaponized as delay. In political life, the call to “wait until we have all the facts” often means “wait until the moment passes.” Acting quickly protects the opening that crises create: the protest window, the legislative vote, the cultural pivot when people are briefly paying attention. It’s a reminder that power moves on timetables, not syllabi.

“Think slowly” then lands as the second, sharper blade. It insists that action without sustained reflection turns movements into performance and slogans into dogma. Slow thinking is where strategy, accountability, and self-critique live: Who benefits? Who gets harmed? What structures are we reinforcing while we’re busy resisting?

The subtext is distinctly Greer: impatience with complacency, suspicion of consensus, and a feminist insistence that the costs of delay are unevenly distributed. The people told to be patient are usually the people already bleeding time. The people praised for “careful deliberation” are often the ones insulated from the consequences. This line works because it refuses the comforting binary: urgency versus rigor. It demands both, and it makes you feel slightly indicted if you’ve been using either as cover.