His ideal is a man who, having worked all day for the good of posterity (if that is his vocation), washes his mind of the whole subject, commits the issue to Heaven, and returns at once to the patience or gratitude demanded by the moment that is passing over him. But we want a man hag-ridden by the Future–haunted by visions of an imminent heaven or hell upon earth–ready to break the Enemy’s commands in the present if by so doing we make him think he can attain the one or avert the other–dependent for his faith on the success or failure of schemes whose end he will not live to see. We want a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow’s end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now, but always using as mere fuel wherewith to heap the altar of the future every real gift which is offered them in the Present. C.s. Lewis
About This Quote

Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “His ideal is a man who, having worked all day for the good of posterity (if that is his vocation), washes his mind of the whole subject, commits the issue to Heaven, and returns at once to the patience or gratitude demanded by the moment that is passing over him.” Emerson sees a man who is happy to work hard in life and then neglects everything when he gets home. He wants a person who keeps busy when he is not working and does not think about tomorrow’s problems when he is at work or when he is at home.

Source: The Screwtape Letters

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