About wealth

To smooth out the impressions of this topic , as well as a bit in response to the question "What to do?"

I know that you have seventy million. But we all know that a person is rich not when he has a lot of money, but when he has enough money. And while he is eager to increase his capital, he is not yet rich. If he even has seventy times seventy million, they still do not make him rich, while he languishes in his thirst to accumulate more. My funds would just be enough, probably, to buy the worst horse from your stable, but I can say with all my heart that I don’t need more than one horse. So I am rich. And you! You have seventy million, but you certainly need five hundred, and you suffer sincerely because of this. Such poverty simply terrifies. Honestly I tell you, I could hardly live a day under the heavy burden of despicable thirst to get another four hundred thirty million. That would kill me. Your ill-fated misery so depresses me that, having met you now, I would gladly throw a dime into your tin and say, "God, have mercy on you, you are a poor wretch!"

Mark Twain, "Open Letter to Commodore Vanderbilt."