"Better never begin than never make an end"
About this Quote
A clean little blade of a line: it praises hesitation only to shame it. Herbert’s “Better never begin than never make an end” isn’t really advising timidity; it’s a moral dare aimed at the chronic half-starter. The phrasing sets up a harsh calculus. “Never begin” sounds like the coward’s option, but Herbert makes it the lesser sin compared to the slow leak of intention without completion. The real target is spiritual and social: vows made casually, projects launched for display, reforms announced for applause, devotion performed as mood rather than discipline.
As a 17th-century poet-priest writing in a culture obsessed with duty, order, and salvation, Herbert treats finishing as a test of character. The subtext is theological: beginnings are cheap; perseverance is what reveals whether the will is aligned with something sturdier than impulse. In a Protestant-inflected world where inner sincerity is under scrutiny, the unfinished becomes a kind of evidence. You didn’t simply fail at logistics; you revealed a divided heart.
What makes the line work is its severe symmetry. The repeated “never” turns time into judgment, and “end” lands with a thud: closure, consequence, death, accounting. It’s also quietly pragmatic, the sort of wisdom that fits Herbert’s wider project in The Temple, where ordinary acts become spiritual diagnostics. Read now, it skewers the modern habit of collecting starts - resolutions, side hustles, public commitments - as identity. Herbert’s point: don’t audition virtue. Either step into the work, or keep your hands clean by staying out of it.
As a 17th-century poet-priest writing in a culture obsessed with duty, order, and salvation, Herbert treats finishing as a test of character. The subtext is theological: beginnings are cheap; perseverance is what reveals whether the will is aligned with something sturdier than impulse. In a Protestant-inflected world where inner sincerity is under scrutiny, the unfinished becomes a kind of evidence. You didn’t simply fail at logistics; you revealed a divided heart.
What makes the line work is its severe symmetry. The repeated “never” turns time into judgment, and “end” lands with a thud: closure, consequence, death, accounting. It’s also quietly pragmatic, the sort of wisdom that fits Herbert’s wider project in The Temple, where ordinary acts become spiritual diagnostics. Read now, it skewers the modern habit of collecting starts - resolutions, side hustles, public commitments - as identity. Herbert’s point: don’t audition virtue. Either step into the work, or keep your hands clean by staying out of it.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
|---|
More Quotes by George
Add to List
