He put the letter in his pocket without reading it until the game was finished, when he rallied his men only to die just before his troops were taken prisoners.

Only a few minutes' delay, but he lost honor, liberty, life! Success is the child of two very plain parents--punctuality and accuracy.

There are critical moments in every successful life when if the mind hesitate or a nerve flinch all will be lost.
"Immediately on receiving your proclamation," wrote Governor Andrew of Massachusetts to President Lincoln on May 3, 1861, "we took up the war, and have carried on our part of it, in the spirit in which we believe the Administration and the American people intend to act, namely, as if there were not an inch of red tape in the world." He had received a telegram for troops from Washington on Monday, April 15; at nine o'clock the next Sunday he said: "All the regiments demanded from Massachusetts are already either in Washington, or in Fortress Monroe, or on their way to the defence of the Capitol." "The only question which I can entertain," he said, "is what to do; and when that question is answered, the other is, what next to do." "The whole period of youth," said Ruskin, "is one essentially of formation, edification, instruction.

There is not an hour of it but is trembling with destinies--not a moment of which, once passed, the appointed work can ever be done again, or the neglected blow struck on the cold iron." Napoleon laid great stress upon that "supreme moment," that "nick of time" which occurs in every battle, to take advantage of which means victory, and to lose in hesitation means disaster.

He said that he beat the Austrians because they did not know the value of five minutes; and it has been said that among the trifles that conspired to defeat him at Waterloo, the loss of a few moments by himself and Grouchy on the fatal morning was the most significant.