It is a wise rule of life to work every day, within reasonable restrictions, towards limiting eternal needs. "To need nothing,’’ Socrates said, ''is an attribute of divinity, to have need of little is an approach towards divine perfection.” Thus the heathen sage. How many things we might do without! The needs that we create, that we do not know where to check, that, on the contrary we go on adding to indefinitely—all these become a legion of petty tyrants that form up and surround us. Let us be on our guard, for thus we are watched from every point.
We claim to be rich; we are mistaken, we are poor, very poor, indeed, for the needs that we go on multiplying are a crowd of beggars that assault our home; each addition is a fresh charge upon us. We grow poorer as we add to our wants, for each fresh need, each desire for some new thing, increases the mob of supplicants. In appearance we may seem richer, but in fact we are tending towards absolute beggary, for we in our turn come to be always asking—asking that we may supply the needs that have become our masters.
- Msgr. Landriot
The rich differ in nothing from beggars, but in being more miserable, for beggars have need of little, and the rich of much.
- Seneca
We claim to be rich; we are mistaken, we are poor, very poor, indeed, for the needs that we go on multiplying are a crowd of beggars that assault our home; each addition is a fresh charge upon us. We grow poorer as we add to our wants, for each fresh need, each desire for some new thing, increases the mob of supplicants. In appearance we may seem richer, but in fact we are tending towards absolute beggary, for we in our turn come to be always asking—asking that we may supply the needs that have become our masters.
- Msgr. Landriot
The rich differ in nothing from beggars, but in being more miserable, for beggars have need of little, and the rich of much.
- Seneca
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