Life & Wisdom Quote by Edmund Spenser

A Renaissance poet telling you that the hard part is the start isn’t self-help; it’s a theory of virtue dressed in clean, memorable cadence. “Each goodly thing” does sly work: Spenser doesn’t say “every task” or “every dream.” He narrows the claim to what is morally or spiritually “goodly” - the sort of action that improves a life, a community, a soul. That framing quietly flatters the reader (if you’re struggling, it’s probably because you’re attempting something worthy) while also raising the stakes (abandoning it isn’t just quitting; it’s failing the good).

The line’s compression is its persuasive engine. The superlative “hardest” doesn’t describe the whole journey, only the threshold. Spenser recognizes inertia as a moral battlefield: the moment before commitment, when comfort can still masquerade as prudence. Once you begin, the deed acquires momentum, witnesses, consequences. Before you begin, it’s pure interior theater.

Context sharpens the intent. Spenser writes from a world where “good” is not merely personal preference but an ordered ideal, reinforced by religion, hierarchy, and the literary project of The Faerie Queene - an epic designed to train readers into virtues by making them feel virtue as struggle. The aphorism works because it smuggles discipline into consolation: it normalizes resistance without excusing retreat. Difficulty becomes evidence, not of misalignment, but of value.