Benjamim Franklin
Commenting on a quotation from Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin starts saying that money doesn’t bring happiness. People who have a lot of money can buy a lot of material things but there are some things that they will never buy: emotional things like love, friendship, happiness. Rich people don’t have the same opinion; they say that their money buys health, happiness, friendship and everything else. I don’t agree with them. A person is happy if he/ she has love, even if he/ she doesn’t have money to have the life he/ she wanted to have.
I’m not rich and I don’t know the feeling it causes but I agree with the author when he says that, when man has a thing, he wants another, and then other and other. People are never satisfied with material things. This is the consumerism our society is living. Sometimes people care more about superfluous things than about what they feel. It’s because of that that the majority of rich people is selfish and dies alone, with no one to help, to love. During their whole life they didn’t care about the people who loved them. Like Benjamin Franklin said, men’s life becomes a vacuum with no feeling inside their heart, just the necessity to have, to buy, to show wealth.
What I liked most in this quotation was the proverb. The author was, probably, a religious man. I agree with this proverb and I think it shows perfectly that it’s better have nothing and believe in God to give us everything we need in life (health, work, happiness) than have a big treasure, a lot of money and be unhappy and lonely.
Unfortunately, our society in becoming more and more consumerist and I think that some values must be remembered to warn people and make them understand that consumerism won’t fill the empty spaces in their lives! - Ana Carolina Pereira, nº 2 - 11º A
"Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of its filling a vacuum, it makes one. If it satisfies one want, it doubles and trebles that want another way. That was a true proverb of the wise man, rely upon it; "Better is little with the fear of the Lord, than great treasure, and trouble therewith." - Benjamin Franklin
- In my opinion the main idea of this particularly quotation is that nowadays people's only concern is money. For people it's never enough, we've all become consumed by consumerism, it affects us in numerous ways, at Christmas time, for example, people have completely forgotten what the Christmas spirit is really about, Christmas nowadays is about the presents you get and how expensive and big they are. Throughout the times people have become more selfish and materialistic, we want everything, we are always looking for something better, we have something good we have to get something better even if we don't need it. I think that society nowadays is so obsessed with money because everyone is trying to reach happiness and most of us think that it can be reached with money, most think they will find it with material things and money. We live in a society where people start competing since an early age, at school for example and we have become competitive, that's fine until certain point but we do it too much and that leads to the fact that we are selfish. These days we are able to find a lot of people willing to do outrageous things for money because we are more materialistic towards things. I think people should have more altruism and not try to find happiness with money, unfortunately this is the way our society is built, the more we have, the more we want! 10º C Maria Ferreira
"Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of its filling a vacuum, it makes one. If it satisfies one want, it doubles and trebles that want another way. That was a true proverb of the wise man, rely upon it; "Better is little with the fear of the Lord, than great treasure, and trouble therewith." - Benjamin Franklin
- In my opinion the main idea of this particularly quotation is that nowadays people's only concern is money. For people it's never enough, we've all become consumed by consumerism, it affects us in numerous ways, at Christmas time, for example, people have completely forgotten what the Christmas spirit is really about, Christmas nowadays is about the presents you get and how expensive and big they are. Throughout the times people have become more selfish and materialistic, we want everything, we are always looking for something better, we have something good we have to get something better even if we don't need it. I think that society nowadays is so obsessed with money because everyone is trying to reach happiness and most of us think that it can be reached with money, most think they will find it with material things and money. We live in a society where people start competing since an early age, at school for example and we have become competitive, that's fine until certain point but we do it too much and that leads to the fact that we are selfish. These days we are able to find a lot of people willing to do outrageous things for money because we are more materialistic towards things. I think people should have more altruism and not try to find happiness with money, unfortunately this is the way our society is built, the more we have, the more we want! 10º C Maria Ferreira
