How mad it is for so short-lived a creature as man to look forward into a future to which he rarely attains, while he neglects the present which is his?
 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, or On Education (1762). copy citation

add
Author Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Source Emile, or On Education
Topic future present
Date 1762
Language English
Reference
Note Translated by Barbara Foxley
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/5427/pg5427-images.html

Context

“When this natural law is overthrown reason establishes another, but few discern it, and man's resignation is never so complete as nature's. Prudence! Prudence which is ever bidding us look forward into the future, a future which in many cases we shall never reach; here is the real source of all our troubles! How mad it is for so short-lived a creature as man to look forward into a future to which he rarely attains, while he neglects the present which is his? This madness is all the more fatal since it increases with years, and the old, always timid, prudent, and miserly, prefer to do without necessaries to-day that they may have luxuries at a hundred. Thus we grasp everything, we cling to everything;” source