Time & Perspective Quote by Roger Babson

Babson packages a moral commandment in the language of investment. "Enjoy a good future" sounds almost sensual, but he makes the pleasure conditional on discipline: waste none of his present. The line works because it treats time like capital, with the same hard edge Babson brought to forecasting and business education. It flatters the reader as someone with a portfolio to manage, then quietly accuses them of squandering it.

The specific intent is pedagogical and managerial: cultivate habits that convert today into tomorrow. Babson isn’t offering inspiration so much as a policy. The future isn’t destiny; it’s a balance sheet built by daily choices. That’s why he uses "him who would" instead of "you should". The slightly biblical phrasing universalizes the lesson and gives it a moral sheen, as if procrastination were not merely inefficient but faintly sinful.

The subtext is early 20th-century American self-making, when efficiency was a civic virtue and leisure was suspicious unless it could be justified as restoration for more work. Coming from an educator, the message doubles as institutional advice: schools, like individuals, must justify the present as preparation, not indulgence. There’s also a quiet elitism in the formulation: the person entitled to "enjoy" the future is the one with the foresight to delay gratification. In an era shaped by industrial schedules and market uncertainty, Babson’s sentence sells control as comfort: if you master your present, you can buy peace in advance.