Money

I've been reading an English translation of Rousseau's Confessions. It's an autobiographical work by a well known philosopher named Jean-Jacques Rousseau. I have not made it very far yet, and I've already stumbled onto one of those phrases that's so good it just makes you draw back and try to frame your own life in it to see if it fits.

To put the phrase in context, he writes for several paragraphs about his contempt for money, especially his inability to find anything but discomfort in spending it, and its nature of corrupting that which he attempts to obtain with it. He writes:

Money in one's possession is the instrument of liberty. Money one pursues is the symbol of servitude. That is why I hold fast to what I have, but covet no more.