المستعجل والبطي عند المعدية يلتقي

The saying sets two travellers side by side, one who hurries and one who takes their time, and has them meet at the ferry, where both must wait for the same crossing. The lesson is that hurrying gains nothing when the finish depends on something outside a person’s control. The hurried traveller arrives first but leaves no sooner, and has spent effort and strain for no advantage.

It does not say that speed never matters. Where arriving first really does bring an earlier finish, as with a queue served in order or a departure that will not wait, the image does not fit. It is also not a warning that haste causes mistakes; its point is a shared bottleneck, not careless work. Nor does it praise slowness for itself: the slow traveller gains nothing either, except being spared a wasted rush.

The saying was recorded in the setting of a ferry crossing, where the hasty traveller and the slow one end up waiting for the same departure; its present-day use is not established. Read as advice, it suits someone hurrying toward an outcome that a shared constraint holds back for everyone, such as a meeting that cannot start until all have arrived. Its tone is wry rather than scolding: it points to the situation that makes hurry pointless instead of blaming the person who hurries.