Augustine of Hippo: The miseries that attend on riches

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“Such, O my soul, are the miseries that attend on riches. They are gained with toil and kept with fear. They are enjoyed with danger and lost with grief. It is hard to be saved if we have them; and impossible if we love them; and scarcely can we have them, but we shall love them inordinately. Teach us, O Lord, this difficult lesson: to manage conscientiously the goods we possess, and not covetously desire more than you give to us.”

Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!” Mark 10:23

Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (354-430) in Sermon 133 as recounted in The Good Works Reader, ed. by Thomas C. Oden (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2007) 289.