Well Begun Half Done Quotes & Sayings

A road well begun is the battle half won. The important thing is to make a beginning and
get under way. — Soren Kierkegaard

Here were two people who had penetrated farther than she into the labyrinth of the wedded state, and struggled through some of its thorniest passages; and yet both, one consciously, the other half-unaware, testified to the mysterious fact which was already dawning on her: that the influence of a marriage begun in mutual understanding is too deep not to reassert itself even in the moment of flight and denial. — Edith Wharton

said Yitzhak Rabin, addressing the first full meeting of the Israeli Cabinet since the crisis had begun on Sunday, 'I want to say that any information that leaks out today can end up costing lives. So I ask you not to behave normally regarding this issue.' In other words, speak to no one. An hour and a half earlier he had met with Yitzhak Navon, the chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs — Saul David

Why do you have to go to the cathedral?' said Leni. K. tried to explain briefly, but he had hardly begun when Leni suddenly said: 'They are hounding you.' K., who could not bear anyone feeling sorry for him unexpectedly or gratuitously, broke off abruptly with just two words; but as he hung up the receiver he said, half to himself and half to the distant woman who could no longer hear him: 'Yes, they are hounding me. — Franz Kafka

The robin was tremendously busy. He was very much pleased to see gardening begun on his own estate. He had often wondered at Ben Weatherstaff. Where gardening is done all sorts of delightful things to eat are turned up with the soil. Now here was this new kind of creature who was not half Ben's size and yet had had the sense to come into his garden and begin at once. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

There is an old saying "well begun is half done" - 'tis a bad one. I would use instead, "Not begun at all till half done;" so according to that I have not begun my Poem and consequently (a priori) can say nothing about it. — John Keats

For my hustlers, here's some motivation: He who has begun is half done. — Nas

I knew I had to keep him to myself, as I'd slowly begun to keep everything. We had secrets now, truths and half-truths, that kept her always at arm's length, behind a closed door, miles away. — Sarah Dessen

I see that you think more than you can express. But, if that's the case, you must also know that you have never fully lived out your thoughts, and that isn't good. Only the thoughts that we live out have any value. You knew that your 'permissible world' was only half the world, and you tried to hide away the second half from yourself, the way clergymen and teachers do. You won't succeed! No one can do that when he has once begun to think. — Hermann Hesse

Creation is not a moment of inspiration but a lifetime of endurance. The drawers of the world are full of things begun. Unfinished sketches, pieces of invention, incomplete product ideas, notebooks with half-formulated hypotheses, abandoned patents, partial manuscripts. Creating is more monotony than adventure. It is early mornings and late nights: long hours doing work that will likely fail or be deleted or erased - a process without progress that must be repeated daily for years. Beginning is hard, but continuing is harder. Those who seek a glamorous life should not pursue art, science, innovation, invention, or anything else that needs new. Creation is a long journey where most turns are wrong and most ends are dead. The most important thing creators do is work. The most important thing they don't do is quit. The — Kevin Ashton

To have begun is half the job; be bold and be sensible. — Horace

As the proverb says, "a good beginning is half the business" and "to have begun well" is praised by all. — Plato

I was changed by Nathan's death, because I had to be. Our life together here was over. It was my life alone that had to go on. The strand had slackened. I had begun the half-a-life you have when you have a whole life that you can only remember. — Wendell Berry

Once begun, A task is easy; half the work is done. — Horace

Rafe had sat back in his chair so his face was in the shadow, but she knew he
was watching her through half-closed eyes. When he leaned forward,
the fire from the candles flickered, throwing shadows on the planes
of his face. She could see his eyes clearly now, and their steady focus
was causing her insides to stir. There was romance in the still air; the
rhythm of dripping water from the fountain behind him, the velvet
sky studded with stars, the balmy perfumes of the night, all combined
to accompany the endless song that had begun in her heart again as
she watched him, enthralled. — Hannah Fielding

When the ancients said a work well begun was half done, they meant to impress the importance of always endeavoring to make a good beginning. — Polybius

Suddenly, at about ten o'clock, a dull thud sounded somewhere far away from us, and simultaneously we saw a small white round cloud about half a mile ahead of us where the shrapnel had exploded. The battle had begun. — Fritz Kreisler

He who has begun has half done. Dare to be wise; begin! — Horace

A work well begun is half-ended. — Plato

Well begun is not only half done, but often fully cooked. — Austin O'Malley

That night the Salt Fish Girl came back looking exhausted and dishevelled. A Malaysian girl who worked at her factory had been stricken with hysteria, had gone to the toilet and begun screaming and tearing at her hair. She had been working at the factory for nearly three years and was half blind and bored out of her wits with the tedious repetitiveness of the work. Her hysteria had provoked others, until half the women in the factory were screaming and howling and throwing themselves against the walls in sheer frustration with the dreariness of their toil and the damage it was exacting from their once young bodies and once bright faces. — Larissa Lai

The dial of the clock wears out unevenly;
Most worn
Is the area round eight.
As it is stared at with abrasive glances
unfailingly twice a day,
It is weathered away.
On the other side
The area at two
Is only half as worn,
For closed eyes at night
Pass without stopping.
If there is one who possesses a flat watch evenly worn,
It is he who, failing at the start, is running one lap behind.

Thus the world is always
A lap fast--
The world he thinks he sees
Has not yet begun.
Illusory time,
When the hands stand vertically on the dial;
Without the bell announcing the raising of the curtain,
The play has come to an end. — Kobo Abe

(From FORTUNE'S SON)
Philip had long ago begun drinking to excess, simply to obliterate the reality that he was half a man, living half a life. He had a title without the fortune, a wife that was no lover, and a lover, the only light in his darkened existence, who could never be his wife; thus, he drank ... drink and despair had made him reckless and rash. He'd gambled and he'd lost. Sunk in self-denigration, the cycle began anew; he drank.
Though aspiring for oblivion, he had only achieved piss-faced, when Lady Hastings had arrived after the race. The inevitable row had ensued, and then the world had retracted into blessed blackness. — Emery Lee

What's well begun is half done. — Horace

The most important step is the first step. All those old sayings are really true. Well begun is half done. Don't get it perfect, get it going. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Nothing is more exhausting than the task that's never started, and strangely, starting is often far harder than continuing. — Gretchen Rubin

Who has begun has half done. Have the courage to be wise. Begin! — Horace Walpole

The journey to the grave is already begun, the journey to corruption is, always, already, half over. — James Baldwin

They say well begun half done; but Perseverance on the way down takes you up to a great end. — Vikrmn

Old Spice, the seventy-five-year-old brand of men's grooming products, had begun to lose market share in the body wash category as the market became more and more crowded. Under the direction of the digital agency Wieden+Kennedy, the brand's manufacturer, Procter & Gamble, aimed to change how women (who were buying more than half of the body wash products) felt about their men wearing "lady-scented body wash." The video campaign called "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like," starring Isaiah Mustafa, was launched online in July 2010 during Super Bowl weekend. On the first day, the campaign received almost 6 million views. After the first week, Old Spice had 40 million views. Traffic to their website was up 300% and Facebook fan interaction was up 800%. Within six months, the campaign generated 1.4 billion impressions. — Bernadette Jiwa

Real life is all beginnings. Days, weeks, children, journeys, marriages, inventions. Even a murder is the beginning of a criminal. Perhaps even a spree. Everything is prologue. Every story has a stutter. It just keeps starting and starting until you decide to shut the camera off. Half the time you don't even realise that what you're choosing for breakfast is the beginning of a story that won't pan out till you're sixty and staring at the pastry that made you a widower. No, love, in real life you can get all the way to death and never have finished one single story. Or never even get one so much as half-begun. — Catherynne M Valente

In Paris the swaying lanterns are lit in the streets; lights shine through water, fuzzy, diffuse. Saint-Just sits by an insufficient fire, in a poor light. He is a Spartan after all, and Spartans don't need home comforts. He has begun his report, his list of accusations; if Robespierre saw it now, he would tear it up, but in a few days' time it will be the very thing he needs. Sometimes he stops, half-glances over his shoulder. He feels someone has come into the room behind him; but when he allows himself to look, there is nothing to see. It is my destiny, he feels, forming in the shadows of the room. It is the guardian angel I had, long ago when I was a child. It is Camille Desmoulins, looking over my shoulder, laughing at my grammar. He pauses for a moment. He thinks, there are no living ghosts. He takes hold of himself. Bends his head over his task. His pen scratches. His strange letterforms incise the paper. His handwriting is minute. He gets a lot of words to the page. — Hilary Mantel

You knew all along that your sanctioned world was only half the world, and you tried to suppress the other half the same way the priests and teachers do. You won't succeed. No one succeeds in this once he has begun to think. — Hermann Hesse

The proverb says that 'well begun is half done.' But the other half is harder and more necessary,-to get a thing well ended. — Henry Van Dyke

Jaime Rivera gaped in disbelief as the cadreman took at least five direct hits and didn't go down. And then the trooper who should have been dead was coming straight at him, pistol in one hand and some sort of sword in the other.
The pistol came up, and Rivera recoiled as the first penetrator spalled his visor. It didn't punch through, but the incredible impact, less than ten centimeters in front of his eyes half-stunned him. It was only for an instant, no more than a single heartbeat, but that was long enough.
His vision had just begun to refocus when the force blade in Alicia DeVries' right hand decapitated him in a fountain of blood. — David Weber

Many lose through never starting. A job well begun is half done. — Orrin Woodward

Dimidium facti qui coepit habet: sapere aude" ("He who has begun is half done: dare to know!"). — Horace

The weekend break had begun with the usual resentment and had continued with half-repressed ill humour. It was, of course, his fault. He had been more ready to hurt his wife's feelings and deprive his daughter than inconvenience a pub bar full of strangers. He wished there could be one memory of his dead child which wasn't tainted with guilt and regret. — P.D. James

I have begun to wonder what actually happens in our brains when we return to half-remembered places. What is memory's perspective? Does the man revise the boy's view or is the imprint relatively static, a vestige of what was once intimately known? — Siri Hustvedt

A well begun is half ended. — A. C. Benson

If she[ ... ] had known how much her first half-inch beginning to let go would take - and how long her noticing and renouncing owning and her turning her habits, and beginning the slimmest self-mastery whose end was nowhere in sight - would she have begun? — Annie Dillard

In my body's effort to conserve itself, rather than attempt any movement outside, I have begun eating more sugar than is good for me. Sugar, while a comfort to many, is a detriment to those with my various physical complaints, and even a spoonful could plunge me into violent agony. It is a pleasurable agony, at least, and in my depression and desperation to have anything that resembled nutrition, I ate half a jar of chocolate spread. I know I should not buy these things. I seldom give in to such cibarious cagmaggery, even when it is On Sale, but when summer is imminent, I will do anything to feel better, including eat something that will make me regret my folly.

I am currently crippled on the floor and awaiting death, or I am lately dead and have taught my undead form to use a keyboard, I cannot tell which. I am no longer hot, however, and there is some comfort, whether I am dead or alive. I would rather be alive, I think, if only to buy more chocolate spread. — Michelle Franklin

Shuddering Tanis stepped back. Raistlin gave the drawstring on the top of the bag a quick jerk, snapping it shut. Then, glancing at them distrustfully, he slipped the bag within his robes, secreting it in one of his numerous hidden pockets, and begun to turn away. But Tanis stopped him.
"Things can never again be the same between us, can they?" the half-elf asked quietly.
Raistlin looked at him for a moment, and Tanis saw a brief flicker of regret in the young mage's eyes, a longing for trust and friendship and return to the days of youth.
"No," Raistilin whispered. "But such was the price I paid. — Margaret Weis

The planet Mars, I scarcely need remind the reader, revolves about the sun at a mean distance of 140,000,000 miles, and the light and heat it receives from the sun is barely half of that received by this world. It must be, if the nebular hypothesis has any truth, older than our world; and long before this earth ceased to be molten, life upon its surface must have begun its course. The fact that it is scarcely one seventh of the volume of the earth must have accelerated its cooling to the temperature at which life could begin. It has air and water and all that is necessary for the support of animated existence. — H.G.Wells