unbribed

Updated: June 17, 2025

We have lost the power of even imagining what the ancient idealization of poverty could have meant: the liberation from material attachments, the unbribed soul, the manlier indifference, the paying our way by what we are or do, and not by what we have, the right to fling away our life at any moment irresponsibly the more athletic trim, in short, the moral fighting shape. … It is certain that the prevalent fear of poverty among the educated classes is the worst moral disease from which our civilization suffers."

Price Collier - Germany and the Germans : From an American Point of View