Moreover, he bore splendid testimony to the wisdom of Plato1 in urging the man who would be truly rich, not to make his possessions greater, but his inordinate desires fewer; since he who puts no end to his greed, this man is never rid of poverty and want.Related post: Avarice and Dropsy.
1The passage cannot be determined.
λαμπρὰν τῷ Πλάτωνι μαρτυρίαν διδοὺς διακελευομένῳ μὴ τὴν οὐσίαν πλείω, τὴν δὲ ἀπληστίαν ποιεῖν ἐλάσσω τόν γε βουλόμενον ὡς ἀληθῶς εἶναι πλούσιον, ὡς ὅ γε μὴ παύων φιλοπλουτίαν, οὗτος οὔτε πενίας οὔτε ἀπορίας ἀπήλλακται.
"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
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Friday, June 05, 2026
Insatiable Greed
Plutarch, Life of Demetrius 32.5 (tr. Bernadotte Perrin, with his note):