Omnis enim res, virtus, fama, decus, divina, humanaque pulchris divitiis parent.
(Horace, Satires 2.3.94-96)

For everything, virtue, fame, honor, divine things and human things fall subject
to beautiful riches.

(pron = OHM-nis EH-nim rays, WEER-toos, FAH-mah, DAY-koos, dih-WEE-nah,
hoo-mah-NAH-kweh POOL-krees dih-WEE-tees PAH-rent)

Comment: This line is lifted from a section of Horace's Satires which he begins
by inviting all who are suffering from some malady of the mind to come near (he
offers examples: you grow pale with ambition, or love of money, or passion), so
that he can convince them that they are insane.

He offers a variety of examples of individuals whose particular mental obsession
has them doing absurd or extreme things. This one fellow was so obsessed with
having money, was so convinced that poverty was the ultimate evil, that he left
it in his will that what he left each of his heirs should be carved on his
tombstone. That way, even in death, no one would think him poor. Imagine a
tombstone in your local cemetary with all of the heirs' names listed and dollar
amounts next to them! In our culture, such a stone would be a local attraction
to go and see and laugh at, take pictures of, etc. Surely this old man was
crazy. Horace says that for a man or woman like this, everything in their
lives becomes subservient to money.

He offers many more examples. They are all examples of things that people
become too focused on in their mind, and everything else in their lives becomes
subservient to that thing. Of course, none of us reading this, nor he who
writes it, is so obsessed, but if we were . . . what thing would it be that we
were tempted to make everything else in our lives subservient to?