Time & Perspective Quote by Charles Spurgeon

Anxiety, Spurgeon suggests, is a terrible accountant: it charges you twice and pays out nothing. The line works because it refuses the sentimental promise that worry is a form of preparation. Instead, it frames anxiety as a bad bargain - you spend today’s usable energy to purchase an illusion of control over tomorrow’s pain. The syntax is almost sermon-perfect: “does not... but only...” turns the thought into a moral verdict, not a mood. It’s not just that anxiety feels unpleasant; it actively depletes a scarce resource: strength.

As a Victorian-era Baptist preacher, Spurgeon is speaking into an age that prized industriousness, self-command, and religious seriousness, while also living with very real uncertainty - illness, economic precarity, early death. His audience didn’t need to be told life contains sorrow; they needed a way to metabolize it without collapsing. The subtext is pastoral triage: suffering may be inevitable, but self-hollowing is optional.

There’s also a theological undertone that makes the aphorism sharper. “Tomorrow” is implicitly God’s territory; trying to manage it through worry becomes a kind of counterfeit providence. Spurgeon isn’t romanticizing passivity. He’s pushing a practical faith: attend to what can be done today, keep your reserves for the burdens you actually have to carry, and don’t confuse rumination with responsibility.

In a culture that treats stress as proof you care, Spurgeon’s line reads like a rebuke - and a relief. It gives permission to stop performing vigilance and start conserving strength.