Be wise to-day! 'tis madness to defer;
Next day, the fatal precedent will plead;
Thus on, till wisdom is pushed out of life.
Procrastination is the thief of time. [ Edward Young ]

It is no shame to follow the better precedent. [ Ben Jonson ]

Men think they may justly do that for which they have a precedent. [ Cicero ]

Human reason has so little confidence in itself that it always looks for a precedent to justify its decrees. [ De Finod ]

Be wise today; 'tis madness to defer; Next day the fatal precedent will plead; Thus on, till wisdom is push'd out of life. [ Young ]

Custom is the law of one description of fools, and fashion of another; but the two parties often clash - for precedent is the legislator of the first, and novelty of the last. Custom, therefore, looks to things that are past, and fashion to things that are present. [ Colton ]

It is necessary to look forward as well as backward, as some think it is always necessary to regulate their conduct by things that have been done of old times, but that past which is so presumptuously brought forward as a precedent for the present, was itself founded on an alternative of some past that went before it. [ Madame De Stael ]