“Nothing more clearly shows how little God esteems his gift to men of wealth, money, position and other worldly goods, than the way he distributes these, and the sort of men who are most amply provided with them.”

— Jean de La Bruyère , book Les Caractères

Rien ne fait mieux comprendre le peu de chose que Dieu croit donner aux hommes, en leur abandonnant les richesses, l'argent, les grands établissements et les autres biens, que la dispensation qu'il en fait, et le genre d'hommes qui en sont le mieux pourvus.
Aphorism 24
Les Caractères (1688), Des biens de fortune

Original

Les Caractères (1688), Des biens de fortune

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Jean de La Bruyère 65

17th-century French writer and philosopher 1645–1696

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René Descartes (1596–1650) French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist

“Not only do we have no real right to the things of the world, because belonging always essentially to God they can never belong to creatures; but we are also limited by the laws of God in the use of those possessions; for it must not be imagined that God gives them to us so that we may dispose of them as we wish. He is too just to have made such an unequal distribution. These goods being the means destined by his Providence for the subsistence of men, he gives to some more than they need only so that they may distribute it to others. A rich man, in so far as he is rich, is thus no more than steward of God's good things.”

Pierre Nicole (1625–1695) French Jansenists

Essais de Morale (1753), XII, p. 371, as quoted in The Bourgeois: Catholicism vs. Capitalism in Eighteenth-Century France (1968), p. 141

“A great man shows his greatness by the way he treats little men.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

Attributed to Carlyle in Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends And Influence People (1936), but this quotation is not found in Carlyle's known works. The first mention found in Google Books dates from 1908, where the Rev. John Timothy Stone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Timothy_Stone is quoted as claiming: 'The greatest critics of this world have been appreciators. Carlyle said, "You can discover a great man, or see a great man, by the way he treats little men.'
The quotation is subsequently found in slightly different forms, mostly in religious publications: "A great man shows his greatness by manner in which he treats little men" (1913, unattributed); The exact wording of Carnegie's quote suggests that it was taken from Stone's 1930 publication.
Disputed

“The doctrine of the Essens is this: That all things are best ascribed to God. They teach the immortality of souls, and esteem that the rewards of righteousness are to be earnestly striven for; and when they send what they have dedicated to God into the temple, they do not offer sacrifices because they have more pure lustrations of their own; on which account they are excluded from the common court of the temple, but offer their sacrifices themselves; yet is their course of life better than that of other men; and they entirely addict themselves to husbandry. It also deserves our admiration, how much they exceed all other men that addict themselves to virtue, and this in righteousness; and indeed to such a degree, that as it hath never appeared among any other men, neither Greeks nor barbarians, no, not for a little time, so hath it endured a long while among them. This is demonstrated by that institution of theirs, which will not suffer any thing to hinder them from having all things in common; so that a rich man enjoys no more of his own wealth than he who hath nothing at all. There are about four thousand men that live in this way, and neither marry wives, nor are desirous to keep servants; as thinking the latter tempts men to be unjust, and the former gives the handle to domestic quarrels; but as they live by themselves, they minister one to another. They also appoint certain stewards to receive the incomes of their revenues, and of the fruits of the ground; such as are good men and priests, who are to get their corn and their food ready for them. They none of them differ from others of the Essens in their way of living, but do the most resemble those Dacae who are called Polistae [dwellers in cities].”

Josephus on the Essenes

AJ 18.1.5
Antiquities of the Jews

“No greater gift could God bestow on men than to give them as their Head His Word”

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

Source: On the Mystical Body of Christ, p.423
Context: No greater gift could God bestow on men than to give them as their Head His Word, by whom He made all things, and to unite them as members to that Head. Thus the Word became both Son of God and Son of man: one God with the Father, one Man with men. Hence, when we offer our petitions to God, let it not detach itself from its Head. Let it be He, the sole Saviour of His body, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who prays for us, who prays in us, and who is prayed to by us. He prays for us as our Priest; He prays in us as our Head; He is prayed to by us as our God. Let us therefore hear both our words in Him and His words in us.... We pray to Him in the form of God; He prays in the form of the slave. There He is the Creator; here He is in the creature. He changes not, but takes the creature and transforms it into Himself, making us one man, head and body, with Himself.
We pray therefore to Him, and through Him, and in Him. We pray with Him, and He with us; we recite this prayer of the Psalm in Him, and He recites it in us.