132. Love of money, then, is deadly.
Seductive is money, whilst it also defiles those who have it, and helps
not those who have it not. Supposing that money sometimes is a
help, yet it is only a help to a poor man who makes his want
known. What good is it to him who does not long for it, nor seek
it; who does not need its help and is not turned aside by pursuit of
it? What good is it to others, if he who has it is alone the
richer for it? Is he therefore more honourable because he has
that whereby honour is often lost, because he has what he must guard
rather than possess? We possess what we use, but what is beyond
our use brings us no fruit of possession, but only the danger of
watching.