A small freestanding pale-blue door slightly open to a strip of starry violet on a sandy plain.

Original artwork, not a still

Cato • 1712

Joseph Addison

The woman that deliberates is lost.

Behind the line

What it means

Our interpretation.

The speaker holds that a woman who keeps weighing her options is already defeated. On this view the moment demands decision, and lingering over alternatives is itself a kind of failure. Delay, not error, is what ruins her.

Context reviewed

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