Concerning Wealth
Hesiod
(Greek poet, B.C. 650)
Who, or by open force, or secret stealth,
Or perjured wiles, amasses wealth,
(Such many are, whom thirst of gain betrays)
The gods, all seeing, shall o’ercloud his days;
His wife, his children, and his friends shall die,
And, like a dream, his ill-got riches fly.
(From the Instructions of Ptah-Hotep)
(Egyptian, B.C. 3550; the oldest book in the world)
If thou be great, after being of no account, and hast gotten riches after squalor, being foremost in these in the city, and hast knowledge concerning useful matters, so that promotion is come unto thee; then swathe not thine heart in thine hoard, for thou art become a steward of the endowment of the God. Thou art not the last, others shall be thine equal, and to them shall come what has come to thee.
(From the Icelandic, Eleventh Century)
I saw the well-filled barns
Of the child of wealth;
Now leans he on the staff of the beggar.
Thus are riches,
As the glance of an eye,
They are an inconstant friend.
By Virgil
(Latin epic poet, B.C. 70-19)
Curst greed of gold, what crimes thy tyrant power has caused!
(From the “Antigone” of Sophocles)
(Greek tragic poet, B.C. 440)
No such ill device
Ever appeared, as money to mankind:
This is it that sacks cities, this routs out
Men from their homes, and trains and turns astray
The minds of honest mortals, setting them
Upon base actions; this revealed to men
Habits of all misdoing, and cognizance
Of every work of wickedness.
(From the Book of Good Counsels)
(Sanscrit, B.C. 300)
Wealth is friends, home, father, brother, title to respect, and fame;
Yea, and wealth is held for wisdom—that it should be so is shame.
(From the “Medea” of Euripides)
(Greek tragic poet, B.C. 431)
Speak not so hastily: the gods themselves
By gifts are swayed, as fame relates; and gold
Hath a far greater influence o’er the souls
Of mortals than the most persuasive words.
(From “The Convivio” of Dante Alighieri)
(Italian epic poet, 1265-1321)
I affirm that gain is precisely that which comes oftener to the bad than to the good; for illegitimate gains never come to the good at all, because they reject them. And lawful gains rarely come to the good, because, since much anxious care is needful thereto, and the anxious care of the good man is directed to weightier matters, rarely does the good man give sufficient attention thereto. Wherefore it is clear that in every way the advent of these riches is iniquitous....
Let us give heed to the life of them who chase riches, and see in what security they live when they have gathered of them, how content they are, how reposeful! And what else, day by day, imperils and slays cities, countries and single persons so much as the new amassing of wealth by anyone? Which amassing reveals new longings, the goal of which may not be reached without wrong to someone....
Wherefore the baseness of riches is manifest enough by reason of all their characteristics, and so a man of right appetite and of true knowledge never loves them; and not loving them does not unite himself to them, but ever wishes them to be far removed from him, save as they be ordained to some necessary service....