On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time. George Orwell (1903 - 1950) "No human thing is of serious importance." Plato (427 BC - 347 BC) Exodus 22: 24-25, "If you lend money to one of your poor neighbors among my people, you shall not act like an extortioner toward him by demanding interest from him." Deuteronomy 15:1-11 orders the cancellation of all debts at the end of every seventh year. James 5:1, "Next a word to you who are rich. Weep and wail over the miserable fate overtaking you: your riches ... will be evidence against you and consume your flesh like fire. ... You have lived on the land in wanton luxury, gorging yourselves — and on the day appointed for your slaughter." Matthew 19: 21-24: "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. ... Amen, I say to you, it will be hard for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." The first century Didache said, "Do not claim that anything is your own." Clement of Alexandria said, "All possessions are by nature unrighteous; when one possesses them for personal advantage and does not bring them into the common stock for those in need." Basil the Great said "That bread which you keep belongs to the hungry; that coat in your closet, to the naked." St. Augustine said, "Business is in itself an evil." Jerome said, "A man who is a merchant can seldom if ever please God." St. John Chrysostom said, "How did you become rich? Can you show the acquisition just? It cannot be. The root and origin of it must have been injustice." "Mankind is divided into rich and poor, into property owners and exploited; and to abstract oneself from this fundamental division ;and from the antagonism between poor and rich means abstracting oneself from fundamental facts." Joseph Stalin
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