Everything in the world may be endured except continual prosperity. – Goethe

Progress imposes not only new possibilities for the future but new restrictions. – Norbert Wiener, The Human Use of Human Beings, 1950

Luxury… corrupts at once rich and poor, the rich by possession and the poor by covetousness. – Rousseau, The Social Contract, 1762

Pearls around the neck – stones upon the heart. – Hanan J. Ayalti, Yiddish Proverbs, 1949