What are your priorities?

These four quotes I think are good food for thought:


On the 10 Commandments:

When Rabbi Menahem Mendl Morgenstern of Kotzk read in Exodus 24:7, "We will do and we will hear," he explained that some actions simply cannot be understood (or heard) until they are performed (or done). By doing, we understand...[we understand what great treasure is being offered.] Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, Jewish Spirituality: A Brief Intro for Christians

On Wealth -quotes from Alain De Botton's Status Anxiety:

Being truly wealthy, does not require having many things; rather, it requires having what one longs for. Wealth is not an absolute. It is relative to desire. Every time we yearn for something we cannot afford, we grow poorer, whatever our resources. And every time we feel satisfied with what we have, we can be counted as rich, however little we may actually possess. pg 43


Humans have a tendency to cease being excited by anything after we have owned it for a short while. The quickest way to stop noticing something, my be to buy it- just as the quickest way to stop appreciating someone may be to marry him or her. We are tempted to believe that certain achievements and possessions will give us enduring satisfaction.



Ruskin wished to be wealthy in kindness, curiosity, sensitivity, humility, godliness and intelligence, a set of virtues to which he applied the collective name "life." The wealthiest people would be those who felt the keenest wonder gazing at the stars at night or who were best able to sense and alleviate the sufferings of others. "There is no wealth but life," he intoned: "life, including all its powers of love, of joy and of admiration. That country is richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings; that man is richest who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the utmost, has also the widest helpful influence, both personal, and by means of his possessions, over the lives of others...Many of the persons commonly considered wealthy are, in reality, no more wealth than the locks of their own strong boxes, they being inherently and eternally incapable of wealth." pg 199