I'm doing this little bit of excerpting because this is not a thinker, or a book, that you're likely to come upon, and you may find some of the insights interesting. Feel free to email me any reactions you have, and any thoughts they spark in you as you read them.
Numbers are page references.
I hope you enjoy them. The first cause of worldly evils for you is too great a hunger for worldly goods. Since in truth love is the beginning of all motion, whether of nature or soul, for this reason, while you love the body ardently, it is on account of the body that you strive after, or fear, all things. Study to withdraw from avarice as much as you have studied to add to your possessions up to the present. Live, I beg you, by the law of nature, which is content with very few and very small things, and not according to opinion, which always compels you to be poor.