"So then put away, relentlessly away, all thought of the results. You cannot control them"
About this Quote
Lightfoot’s line is a scalpel aimed at a very modern sickness: the compulsion to audit your life in real time, tallying outcomes like a moral spreadsheet. “Put away, relentlessly away” isn’t gentle self-care; it’s ascetic discipline. The doubled phrasing mimics a hand returning to the same cluttered shelf again and again, clearing it for good. He’s not saying results don’t matter. He’s saying the fixation on them is a spiritual misdirection that smuggles anxiety in under the banner of responsibility.
The subtext is theological and psychological at once. In a Christian moral framework, “results” belong to providence; your task is fidelity. That reassigns agency: you can control intention, effort, obedience, attention. You cannot control the world’s response, the timing, the weather, the consequences that ripple outward past your sightline. Lightfoot’s blunt “You cannot control them” is almost anti-Victorian in its refusal to flatter the era’s growing faith in mastery, progress, and managerial certainty.
Context matters: Lightfoot lived in a 19th-century Britain where industrial systems were teaching people to believe everything could be optimized, measured, and improved - including conscience. His counsel pushes back against that mechanization of the soul. It also functions as a quiet critique of performative virtue: if you’re doing good chiefly to secure a particular outcome (success, recognition, proof you’re “right”), your goodness is conditional.
The intent isn’t resignation; it’s liberation. By severing moral action from outcome-hunting, Lightfoot tries to rescue courage from the hostage situation of “what if it doesn’t work.”
The subtext is theological and psychological at once. In a Christian moral framework, “results” belong to providence; your task is fidelity. That reassigns agency: you can control intention, effort, obedience, attention. You cannot control the world’s response, the timing, the weather, the consequences that ripple outward past your sightline. Lightfoot’s blunt “You cannot control them” is almost anti-Victorian in its refusal to flatter the era’s growing faith in mastery, progress, and managerial certainty.
Context matters: Lightfoot lived in a 19th-century Britain where industrial systems were teaching people to believe everything could be optimized, measured, and improved - including conscience. His counsel pushes back against that mechanization of the soul. It also functions as a quiet critique of performative virtue: if you’re doing good chiefly to secure a particular outcome (success, recognition, proof you’re “right”), your goodness is conditional.
The intent isn’t resignation; it’s liberation. By severing moral action from outcome-hunting, Lightfoot tries to rescue courage from the hostage situation of “what if it doesn’t work.”
Quote Details
| Topic | Letting Go |
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