"Virtutis Amor, Non Opum Studium"

     My daily reading from Brevissima today is one of those wonderful moralizing pieces that works well as Latin poetry and still seems like sound advice. It is from the French humanist Marcus Antonius Muretus (1526-1585), Juvenilia:

Semper opum studio praefer virtutis amorem;

Non opibus virtus, sed opes virtute parantur.

Roughly rendered into English:

Always put love of virtue before your eagerness for riches;

Virtue is not produced by riches, but riches are prepared by virtue.