Christina Rossetti
“Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished? Yes: work never begun.”
Time Flies (1885)
Documented source
Attribution
Christina Rossetti
Source
Time Flies (1885)
Status
Public domain in the United States
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About this line
The line is from Time Flies, Rossetti’s book of daily devotional readings, written after a long life on the page. Her logic is quietly brutal: unfinished work at least proves you began, so the real sorrow is the work that was never even attempted.
Why we carry this line
It’s the second half of the line that got me. I read it after I read Roosevelt’s Man in the Arena speech. Excellent reminder for us all. Just start the thing.
The design
The answer waits a beat. “Yes: work never begun.” sits apart from the question, stepped in, with space before it. That’s ma, the Japanese idea that the pause between things is part of the design.
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