善は急げ zen wa isoge If It's Worth Doing, It's Worth Doing Promptly

善 is a good thing to do and 急げ is the imperative of 急ぐ, to hurry, so the proverb is a command: do a good thing at once, before the chance is lost. It is in a haikai handbook of 1638 with a second half, 悪は延べよ (aku wa nobeyo), put off the bad. Both forms have been current since. From Saikaku and Chikamatsu around 1700 to the uncle in Sōseki's Kokoro of 1914, its speakers use it to hurry a bargain or a match.

English equivalents such as strike while the iron is hot are about acting now; the Japanese keeps the goodness of the thing as its object, which makes it a moral maxim and not a counsel of speed.

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