Letter 20 — On Practising What You Preach (§7)

““But what,” you say, “will become of my crowded household without a household income?” If you stop supporting that crowd, it will support itself; or perhaps you will learn by the bounty of poverty what you cannot learn by your own bounty. Poverty will keep for you your true and tried friends; you will be rid of the men who were not seeking you for yourself, but for something which you have. Is it not true, however, that you should love poverty, if only for this single reason,—that it will show you those by whom you are loved? O when will that time come, when no one shall tell lies to compliment you!”