What we call people’s wealth and power are in fact very short-lived and fragile things, like a child’s toys. They come to us suddenly,...

A man who longs for nothing obviously has everything, and even more securely than a man who owns every possession. Maximus, Valerius....

Fabricius Luscinus felt the same way. In his day, he held the highest offices and exercised the greatest influence in the entire state,...

A household, a state, a kingdom will easily survive on a permanent basis provided that the desire for sexual pleasure and money wins the...

It is also reported that Xerxes had left his tent to Mardonios when he fled from Hellas, and that when Pausanias saw these quarters of...

In Egypt: This king amassed great wealth in silver, which none of his royal descendants could surpass or even come close to. In order to...

The poor have little, beggars none, the rich too much, enough not one. Franklin, Benjamin. Autobiography, Poor Richard, and Later...

In my Opinion, we might all draw more Good, from it than we do, & suffer less Evil, if we would but take care not to give too much for...

Avarice (greed) entails the pursuit of money, which no wise man covets; avarice, as though steeped with noxious poisons, renders a manly...

Hence a craving first for money, then for power, increased: these were, as it were, the root of all evils. Sallust. Sallust, The War with...

Perhaps it is not the world’s peace that corrupts great natures but much rather the endless warfare which besets our hearts, yes, and...

The stomach he called livelihood’s Charybdis. i.e. a whirlpool engulfing a man’s livelihood. Diogenes. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of...

The love of money he declared to be mother-city of all evils. Diogenes. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers Books 6-10. Loeb...

The Carian, also, from whose wound in the ham Cyrus died, suing for his reward, he commanded those that brought it him to say that “the...

It was this same princess by whom a remarkable deception was planned. She had her tomb constructed in the upper part of one of the principal gateways of the city, high above the heads of the passers-by, with this inscription cut upon it: ‘If there be one among my successors on the throne of Babylon who is in want of treasure, let him open my tomb, and take as much as he chooses – not, however, unless he be truly in want, for it will not be for his good.’ This tomb continued u

For he (Aristides), when Themistocles once was saying that he thought the highest virtue of a general was to understand and foreknow the measures the enemy would take, replied, “This, indeed, Themistocles, is simply necessary, but the excellent thing in a general is to keep his hands from taking money.”

The rest of the Sabines, enraged hereat, choosing Tatius their captain, marched straight against Rome. The city was almost inaccessible, having for its fortress that which is now the Capitol, where a strong guard was placed, and Tarpeius their captain; But Tarpeia, daughter to the captain, coveting the golden bracelets she saw them wear, betrayed the fort into the Sabines’ hands, and asked, in reward of her treachery, the things they wore on their left arms. Tatius conditioni

In that one little corner of California is found a species of mining which is seldom or never mentioned in print. It is called “pocket mining” and I am not aware that any of it is done outside of that little corner. The gold is not evenly distributed through the surface dirt, as in ordinary placer mines, but is collected in little spots, and they are very wide apart and exceedingly hard to find, but when you do find one you reap a rich and sudden harvest. There are not now mo

Crassus, Atticus, and Lucullus typify the three phases of Roman wealth; acquisition, speculation, luxury. Marcus Licinius Crassus was of aristocratic lineage. His father, a famous orator, consul, and censor, had fought for Sulla and had killed himself rather than yield to Marius. Sulla rewarded the son by letting him buy at bargain prices the confiscated properties of proscribed men. As a youth Marcus had studied literature and philosophy and had assiduously practiced law; bu

Everything that you already have seems small in your sight, but everything that I have seems important to me. Your strong desire is insatiate, mine is already satisfied. The same thing happens to the children who put their hand down into a narrow-necked jar and try to take out figs and nuts: if they get their hand full, they can’t get it out, and then they cry. Drop a few and you will get it out. And so do you too drop your desire; do not set your heart upon many things and y

For, mark you, stop admiring your clothes, and you are not angry at the man who steals them; stop admiring your wife’s beauty, and you are not angry at her adulterer. Know that a thief or an adulterer has no place among the things that are your own, but only among the things that are another’s and that are not under your control. If you give these things up and count them as nothing, at whom have you still ground to feel angry? But so long as you admire these things, be angry

I know a man older than myself who is now in charge of the grain supply at Rome. When he passed this place on his way back from exile, I recall what a tale he told as he inveighed against his former life, and announced for the future that, when he had returned to Rome, he would devote himself solely to spending the remainder of his life in peace and quiet, “for how little is yet left to me!” –And I told him, “You will not do it, but when once you have caught no more than a wh