self-squandering

Updated: August 10, 2026

For the claims upon an energetic nature are so many, so various, often so conflicting; it is so hard to know which of two competing duties ought to take precedence, so impossible to adjust effort at precisely its right intensity, and to hit the mean between base self-saving and foolish self-squandering, that I think it must be a common wish for keen consciences to have the boundaries of industry a little more plainly marked out by God, and to be relieved from the perpetual perplexity of choice.

Charles Beard - Beside the Still Waters: A Sermon