Be comforted, my dear sir; we shall not feel the want of those luxuries which others value so highly, since we never had a taste for them; and poverty cannot deprive us of many consolations. It cannot rob us of the affection we have for each other, or degrade us in our own opinions, or in that of any person whose opinion we ought to value.
[...]
Besides, my dear sir, poverty cannot deprive us of intellectual delights. It cannot deprive you of the comfort of affording me examples of fortitude and benevolence, nor me of the delight of consoling a beloved parent. It cannot deaden our taste for the grand and the beautiful, nor deny us the means of indulging it; for the scenes of nature – those sublime spectacles, so infinitely superior to all artificial luxuries! are open for the enjoyment of the poor as well as of the rich. Of what, then, have we to complain, so long as we are not in want of necessaries? pleasures, such as wealth cannot buy will still be ours. We retain, then, the sublime luxuries of nature, and lose only the frivolous ones of art.
- Ann Radcliffe
To Benjamin Webb
A New Method of repaying Money lent.
Passy, 22 April 1784
Dear Sir,
I have received yours of the the 15th instant, and the memorial it enclosed. The account they give of your situation grieves me. I send you herewith a bill for ten louis d’ors. I do not pretend to give such a sum; I only lend it to you. When you shall return to your country with a good character, you cannot fail of getting into some business, that will in time enable you to pay all your debts. In that case, when you meet with another honest man in similar distress, you must pay me by lending this sum to him; enjoining him to discharge the debt by a like operation, when he shall be able, and shall meet with such another opportunity. I hope it may thus go through many hands, before it meets with a knave that will stop its progress. This is a trick of mine for doing a deal of good with a little money. I am not rich enough to afford much in good works, and so am obliged to be cunning and make the most of a little. With best wishes for the success of your memorial, and your future prosperity, I am, dear Sir, your most obedient servant,
B. Franklin.
A GREAT many people have come up to me and asked me how I manage to get so much work done and still keep looking so dissipated. My answer is “Don’t you wish you knew?” and a pretty good answer it is, too, when you consider the nine times out of ten I didn’t hear the original question.
But the fact remains that hundreds of thousands of people throughout the country are wondering how I have time to do all my painting, engineering, writing and philanthropic work when, according to the rotogravure sections and society notes I spend all my time riding to hounds, going to fancy-dress balls disguised as Louis XIV or spelling out GREETINGS TO CALIFORNIA in formation with three thousand Los Angeles school Children. “All work and all play,” they say.
The secret of my incredible energy and efficiency in getting work done is a simple one. I have based it very deliberately on a well known psychological principle and have refined it so that it is now almost too refined. I shall have to begin coarsening it up again pretty soon.
The psychological principle is this: anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn’t the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment.
- Robert Benchley
… so that man, which looks too far before him in the care of the future time, hath his heart all the day long gnawed on by fear of death, poverty or other calamity, and has no repose, nor pause of his anxiety, but in sleep.
- Thomas Hobbes
He that performeth first in the case of a contract, is said to “merit” that which he is to receive by the performance of the other; and he hath it as “due.” Also when a prize is propounded to many, which is to be given to him only that winneth; or money is thrown amongst many, to be enjoyed by them that catch it; though this be a free gift; yet so to win, or so to catch, is to “merit,” and to have it as”due.” For the right is transferred in the propounding of the prize, and in throwing down the money; though it be not determined to whom, but by the event of the contention. But there is between these two sorts of merit, this difference, that in contract, I merit by virtue of my own power, and the contractor’s need; but in this case of free gift, I am enabled to merit only by the benignity of the giver: in contract I merit at the contractor’s hand that he should depart with his right; in this case of gift, I merit not that the giver should part with his right; but that when he has parted with it, it should be mine, rather than another’s.
- Thomas Hobbes
IV
But let our fears – if fears we have – be still,
And turn us to the future! Could we climb
Some Alp in though, and view the coming time,
We should indeed behold a sight to fill
Our eyes with happy tears!
Not for the glories which a hundred years
Shall bring us; not for lands from sea to sea,
And wealth, and power, and peace, though these shall be;
But for the distant peoples we shall bless,
And the hushed murmurs of a world’s distress:
For, to give food and clothing to the poor,
The whole sad planet o’er,
And save from crime its humblest human door,
Our mission is! The hour is not yet ripe
When all shall see it, but behold the type
Of what we are and shall be to the world,
In our own grand and genial Gulf stream furled,
Which through the vast and colder ocean pours
Its waters, so that far-off Arctic shores
May sometimes catch upon the softened breeze
Strange tropic warmth and hints of summer seas.
- Henry Timrod
Hereby it is manifest, that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war, as is of every man, against every man. For “war” consisteth not in battle only, or the act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently know: and therefore the notion of “time” is to be considered in the nature of war, as it is in the nature of weather. For as the nature of foul weather lieth not in a shower or two of rain, but in an inclination thereto of many days together; so the nature of war consisteth not in actual fighting, but in the known disposition thereto during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary. All other time is “peace.”
Whatsoever therefore is consequent to the time wherein men live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them withal. In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain, and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and, which is worse of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
- Thomas Hobbes
System
Every night my prayers I say,
And get my dinner every day;
And every day that I’ve been good,
I get an orange after food.
The child that is not clean and neat,
With lots of toys and things to eat,
He is a naughty child, I’m sure -
Or else his dear papa is poor.
- Robert Louis Stevenson
On the contrary, as there is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher, everything was given away, so to speak, before it was received, like water on thirsty soil; it was well that money came to him, for he never kept any; and besides he robbed himself. It being the custom that all bishops should put their baptismal names at the head of their orders and pastoral letters, the poor people of the district had chosen by a sort of affectionate instinct, from among the names of the Bishop, that which was expressive to them, and they always called him Monseigneur Bienvenu. We shall follow their example and shall call him thus; besides, this pleased him. ‘I like this name,’ said he; ‘Bienvenu counterbalances Monseigneur.’
- Victor Hugo
No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
- Matthew 6:24 (ESV)
No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.
- Matthew 6:24 (NASB)
No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.
- Matthew 6:24 (NIV)