There is an excellent epistle of Plato to Dion's relations, in which there occurs as nearly as possible these words: "When I came there, that happy life so much talked of, devoted to Italian and Syracusan entertainments, was noways agreeable to me; to be crammed twice a day, and never to have the night to yourself, and the other things which are the accompaniments of this kind of life, by which a man will never be made the wiser, but will be rendered much less temperate; for it must be an extraordinary disposition that can be temperate in such circumstances." How, then, can a life be pleasant without prudence and temperance?
Hence you discover the mistake of Sardanapalus, the wealthiest king of the Assyrians, who ordered it to be engraved on his tomb, I still have what in food I did exhaust; But what I left, though excellent, is lost.
"What less than this," says Aristotle, "could be inscribed on the tomb, not of a king, but an ox ?" He said that he possessed those things when dead, which, in his lifetime, he could have no longer than while he was enjoying them.

Why, then, are riches desired?
And wherein doth poverty prevent us from being happy?
In the want, I imagine, of statues, pictures, and diversions.

But if any one is delighted with these things, have not the poor people the enjoyment of them more than they who are the owners of them in the greatest abundance?
For we have great numbers of them displayed publicly in our city.

And whatever store of them private people have, they cannot have a great number, and they but seldom see them, only when they go to their country seats; and some of them must be stung to the heart when they consider how they came by them.

The day would fail me, should I be inclined to defend the cause of poverty.