Life & Mortality Quote by George Herbert

Credit here isn’t a credit score; it’s social oxygen. Herbert’s line lands like a verdict because it collapses an entire person into a single public commodity: credibility. In a world where reputation was currency and community was survival, to lose “credit” wasn’t a private embarrassment. It was an economic and spiritual exile. The phrase “dead to the world” borrows the chill finality of mortality, but it’s really describing a kind of civil death: you still breathe, yet you no longer count.

Herbert, a metaphysical poet and Anglican priest, writes from a culture obsessed with honor, trust, and visible moral standing. Early modern England ran on networks of patronage, promises, and communal judgment. Your word could be a bond; your name could open doors or close every one of them. So the intent is partly warning, partly diagnosis: guard your integrity because society will not separate your self from your standing.

The subtext is harsher: credit is granted, not owned. It’s collective perception, and it can be revoked quickly, sometimes unjustly. Herbert’s compact syntax makes that brutality feel inevitable. “He that hath lost” sounds almost legal, as if the sentence has already been passed. The line also carries a religious sting. For a priest-poet, being “dead to the world” can mean holy detachment; here it’s inverted into punishment. Not sainthood, but social banishment.

Read now, it sounds uncannily contemporary: cancellation before the algorithm, reputational collapse before mass media. Herbert’s genius is making trust feel like life support - and reminding you how fragile the tubing is.