Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly.

Quote Investigator’s 2024 study finds the earliest close match in Emma Bullet’s travel article ‘Ostende and Nuremberg’, The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 20 September 1896, p. 23: the wording includes ‘slowly and well’. Byron E. Cooney used the core formulation with ‘Anything that is worth doing’ in The Montana American on 24 November 1916. A 1980 book credited a version to Gypsy Rose Lee. QI’s first cited West credit is Kay Longcope’s report in The Boston Globe, 1 May 1986, of Ann Richards quoting West; a report in The Chronicle of Higher Education on 22 July 1987 gives the exact shorter popular wording as West’s. The same QI study also quotes the exact short sentence in Margaret Ryan, So You Have To Give a Speech! (Franklin Watts, 1987), chapter 5, p. 60, credited to Gypsy Rose Lee; QI provides no month or day for that book, so the two exact 1987 examples cannot be ordered confidently. These original publications were not inspected in this run; every dated claim rests on QI and is labelled secondary. No recording, script or publication establishing West’s own use was found. The English dialogue transcriptions of I’m No Angel and She Done Him Wrong were searched for worth/doing/slowly and contain no instance of this saying; Wikiquote’s main and talk pages were also consulted. This is not a comprehensive search of her remaining films, plays, autobiography or interviews. The verdict means the attribution remains unsubstantiated, not that she could not have repeated the proverb. No certain originator of the exact modern wording is established.

1. 20 September 1896Before it · credited to Emma BulletEmma Bullet’s travel article advocates slow, considered experience; QI identifies it as the earliest close match, not proof of authorship of the exact modern wording.what is worth doing at all is worth doing slowly and wellEmma Bullet, ‘Ostende and Nuremberg’, The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 20 September 1896, p. 23, column 2. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source
2. 24 November 1916Before it · credited to Byron E. CooneyByron E. Cooney prints the core anything-worth-doing/slowly formulation, extending it into a recommendation for mature consideration; this is not yet the exact shortened modern sentence.Anything that is worth doing, is worth doing slowly,—is worth doing after mature consideration and not in a whirlwind, either literal or figurative.Byron E. Cooney, ‘Y.M.C.A. Movement in Butte’, The Montana American, 24 November 1916, p. 15, column 1. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source
3. 1980Before it · credited to Gypsy Rose LeeRoss A. Webber’s managerial-advice book attributes a version including ‘well’ to Gypsy Rose Lee, illustrating a competing credit rather than establishing her authorship.Ross A. Webber, Time Is Money! The Key to Managerial Success (The Free Press, 1980), chapter 5, ‘Expanding Discretionary Time’, p. 56. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source
4. 1 May 1986Before it · credited to Mae West, quoted by Ann RichardsThe Boston Globe reports Ann Richards crediting the saying, with the additional word ‘well’, to Mae West; this is the earliest West credit cited by QI.Kay Longcope, ‘On board for unity’ (continuation: ‘Women mix business and politics on the Mississippi Queen’), The Boston Globe, 1 May 1986, p. 82, column 2. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source
5. 22 July 1987Earliest found · credited to Mae West, quoted by Haskell RhettA report on an education meeting quotes Haskell Rhett crediting the exact shorter popular sentence to West. QI also documents the exact short wording in Margaret Ryan’s 1987 book, credited there to Gypsy Rose Lee; the book’s publication date is not given more precisely than its year, so priority between these two 1987 examples is undetermined.Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly.Carolyn J. Mooney, ‘Politicians, Schoolteachers, and Education Officials Air Ideas at Commission Sessions, but Consensus Is a Rare Commodity’ (continuation: ‘Consensus Is a Rare Commodity at Meeting of State Education Leaders’), The Chronicle of Higher Education, 22 July 1987, p. 17 (article begins p. 15). Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source

Often offered as a Mae West double entendre, this is also an older maxim about taking time over worthwhile work and experience. Quote Investigator documents a close version in an 1896 travel article and a further version in 1916. Its cited credits to West come from speeches reported after her death, not from an identified performance, interview or publication by her.

Valuable activities deserve unhurried attention. Attributing the line to West adds a sexual suggestion that the earlier travel and civic examples need not have.

A familiar West-like tone is not evidence that she coined or even used this sentence. The earlier examples establish that the saying predates the cited credits to her, but do not prove she never repeated it.

Work, Time, Wisdom

• You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough. (misattributed)
• Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. (not found) Maya Angelou
• No man needs a vacation so much as the man who has just had one. (misattributed) Elbert Hubbard
• Happiness is like a butterfly: the more you chase it, the more it will elude you. But if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder. (not found) Henry David Thoreau
• Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom. (not found) Aristotle

• quoteinvestigator.com/2024/09/01/doing-slowly

“Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly.” Attributed to Mae West. No. The saying predates the documented credits to Mae West. No primary source for her own use was established here; the attribution remains unsubstantiated. Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/anything-worth-doing-is-worth-doing-slowly/ (checked 29 October 2026).

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