Mere Christianity – C. S. Lewis (1952)
We are all only custodians of this planet for a short time-span. During our days on earth it should be our responsibility to take care of it for the next generations but this tend to be scuppered by those with the need to take as much as they can for their own gains.
The seas are plundered, the landscape scared for coal, slate, and other substances such as oil, the space above is polluted by global warming and the land poisoned by chemicals and devastated by fracking. All in the name of profit. All so certain individuals can earn more money than they can spend.
Rousseau (1712-78) wrote in 1750, 'Money buys everything, except morality and citizens.'
Over the years there have been many variations … ‘money can't buy everything, money can't buy friends’, ‘Money will buy everything but real happiness’, ‘money can’t buy happiness but it allows you to rent’ and ‘money can’t buy you happiness, but it will go a long way to helping’.
Having money does not guarantee that life will be lived without heartache, there are enough people in the media that prove the saying only too poignantly. The ones that crumple under depression regardless of the money and the fame, the ones that hook themselves on drugs, those that think themselves invincible or above the law only to be bumped down to earth with the proverbial bang. Money cannot insure against health problems, and although granted having it can make life more comfortable it is no solution against death, after all you can’t take it with you.
However, as the comedian and writer Spike Milligan once said, ‘All I ask is the chance to prove that money can’t make me happy’ because there is an advantage to not being poor.