"Do not be desirous of having things done quickly. Do not look at small advantages. Desire to have things done quickly prevents their being done thoroughly. Looking at small advantages prevents great affairs from being accomplished"
About this Quote
Mizner’s warning reads like fortune-cookie virtue until you remember who’s talking: a Broadway dramatist and legendary hustler who understood deadlines, angles, and the seductive rush of “good enough.” The line isn’t a saintly sermon against ambition; it’s a street-smart diagnosis of how ambition gets cheapened.
“Desirous of having things done quickly” isn’t simply about speed. It’s about impatience as a moral and strategic failing: the itch for closure, applause, cash flow, the next booking. Mizner implies that haste doesn’t just risk mistakes; it actively reshapes the work into something shallow. When you optimize for fast completion, you design for what can be finished, not for what ought to exist. Thoroughness becomes structurally impossible.
The second half is the sharper knife. “Small advantages” sounds like petty profit, minor leverage, tiny wins that feel rational in the moment. Mizner is pointing at a specific kind of self-sabotage: the con artist’s temptation to take the easy score and thereby forfeit the big game. In theater terms, it’s the rewrite that lands a cheap laugh but breaks the character; the producer note that bumps ticket sales now while flattening the show’s longevity.
Context matters: Mizner’s era prized hustle, speculation, and American boosterism, a culture where speed was mistaken for competence. His sentence works because it turns that ideology inside out. It’s an aphorism with a gambler’s cold realism: stop chasing the quick win, or you’ll never build anything large enough to matter.
“Desirous of having things done quickly” isn’t simply about speed. It’s about impatience as a moral and strategic failing: the itch for closure, applause, cash flow, the next booking. Mizner implies that haste doesn’t just risk mistakes; it actively reshapes the work into something shallow. When you optimize for fast completion, you design for what can be finished, not for what ought to exist. Thoroughness becomes structurally impossible.
The second half is the sharper knife. “Small advantages” sounds like petty profit, minor leverage, tiny wins that feel rational in the moment. Mizner is pointing at a specific kind of self-sabotage: the con artist’s temptation to take the easy score and thereby forfeit the big game. In theater terms, it’s the rewrite that lands a cheap laugh but breaks the character; the producer note that bumps ticket sales now while flattening the show’s longevity.
Context matters: Mizner’s era prized hustle, speculation, and American boosterism, a culture where speed was mistaken for competence. His sentence works because it turns that ideology inside out. It’s an aphorism with a gambler’s cold realism: stop chasing the quick win, or you’ll never build anything large enough to matter.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
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