“The poor go to war, to fight and die for the delights, riches, and superfluities of others.”
“The superfluities of the rich are the necessaries of the poor. They who possess superfluities, possess the goods of others.”
Patrologia Latina, vol. 37, p. 1922
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Aurelius Augustinus 183
early Christian theologian and philosopher 354–430Related quotes
Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.12
Context: Those who are ignorant and perverse in their thought are constantly in trouble and pain, because they cannot get as much of the superfluous things as a certain other person possesses. They as a rule expose themselves to great dangers... for the purpose of obtaining that which is superfluous and not necessary. When they thus meet with the consequences of the course which they adopt, they complain of the decrees and the judgements of God; they begin to blame the time, and wonder at the want of justice in its changes; that it has not enabled them to acquire great riches... for the purpose of driving themselves to voluptuousness beyond their capacities, as if the whole Universe existed only for the purpose of giving pleasure to these low people.
Sitting Bull: The Collected Speeches, p. 75
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Olla Podrida, No. 9.
Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay, 1880