Bacon's Essays, with annotations by Richard Whately and notes and a glossarial index, by Franklin Fiske Heard.

272 Of Dispatch. [Essay xxv.
especially provide yourself with an adviser of the opposite class:
one to give you warning of dangers and obstacles, and to
caution you against precipitate decisions, if that be your tendency; or one to make guesses, and suggest expedients, if you
are one of the slow and sure.
Those who are clever [in the proper sense-i. e. quick] are
apt to be so proud of it as to disdain taking time for cautious
inquiry and deliberation; and those of the opposite class are
perhaps no less likely to pride themselves on their cautious
wisdom. But these latter will often, in practice, obtain this
advantage over those they are opposed to-that they will defeat
them without direct opposition, by merely asking for postponement and reconsideration, in cases where (as Bacon expresses it)'not to decide, is to decide.' If you defer sowing a field till
the seedtime is past, you have decided cgaicnst sowing it. If
you carry the motion, that a Bill be read a second time this day
six months, you have thrown it out.