"How happy is he that owes nothing but to himself, and only that which he can easily refuse or easily pay. I do not reckon him poor that has but a little...All I desire is that my poverty may not be a burden to myself, or make me so to others; and that is the best state of fortune, that is neither necessitous, nor far from it.
With parsimony, a little is sufficient, and without it, nothing; whereas frugality makes a poor man rich. If we lose an estate, we had better never have had it. He that has least to lose has least to fear; and those are better satisfied whom fortune never favored, than those whom she has forsaken.
He that is not content in poverty would not be so neither in plenty; for the fault is not in the thing, but in the mind. If he be sickly, remove him from a cottage to a palace, he is at the same pass; for he carries his disease along with him. What can be happier than that condition both of mind and of fortune from which we cannot fall? A man may lie as warm and dry under a thatched as under a gilded roof."
With parsimony, a little is sufficient, and without it, nothing; whereas frugality makes a poor man rich. If we lose an estate, we had better never have had it. He that has least to lose has least to fear; and those are better satisfied whom fortune never favored, than those whom she has forsaken.
He that is not content in poverty would not be so neither in plenty; for the fault is not in the thing, but in the mind. If he be sickly, remove him from a cottage to a palace, he is at the same pass; for he carries his disease along with him. What can be happier than that condition both of mind and of fortune from which we cannot fall? A man may lie as warm and dry under a thatched as under a gilded roof."
~ Seneca, On a Happy Life, A.D. 45
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