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Athens, Greece
If you wish to make Pythocles wealthy, don't give him more money; rather, reduce his desires.
Plain savors bring us a pleasure equal to a luxurious diet, when all the pain due to want is removed; and bread and water produce the highest pleasure, when one who needs them puts them to his lips.
Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember that what you now have was once among the things only hoped for.
Epicurus·-280 ADSelf-sufficiency is the greatest of all wealth.
Epictetus·106 ADWealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.
Mary Wollstonecraft·1792Independence I have long considered as the grand blessing of life, the basis of every virtue; and independence I will ever secure by contracting my wants, though I were to live on a barren heath.
