Time & Perspective Quote by Thomas Hobbes

Hobbes strips “prudence” of its moral halo and drags it down to earth as a mere byproduct of repetition. In his hands, it isn’t a virtue granted to the “good” or the “wise,” but a skill you pick up the way you pick up calluses: by doing the same kinds of things long enough. The sentence is engineered to puncture aristocratic fantasy. If prudence is just experience, then the nobleman’s supposed superior judgment starts to look less like breeding and more like exposure and opportunity.

The subtext is quietly radical and quietly disciplinarian at once. Radical, because it flattens hierarchy: given “equal time” and “equal” application, “all men” can attain prudence in “those things” they practice. Disciplinarian, because Hobbes narrows prudence to domains of labor. You don’t get it by contemplating first principles; you earn it by attention and iteration. He’s not praising character so much as forecasting outcomes. Prudence becomes predictable, almost mechanical.

Context matters: Hobbes is writing out of a century of civil war, ideological zeal, and catastrophic confidence. In that environment, “prudence” isn’t a gentle life tip; it’s a political necessity. By redefining it as experiential, Hobbes implies that societies should rely less on lofty claims of inherent wisdom and more on track records, incentives, and institutions that reward competence. The line also smuggles in a warning: apply yourself equally to the wrong thing - fanaticism, violence, intrigue - and experience will make you “prudent” at that too. Prudence, here, is value-neutral. That’s the chill under the calm phrasing.