The biggest uproar is always about money. Money exhausts our courts with lawsuits. It turns fathers against sons. It buys poison and puts swords in the hands of killers just like soldiers. It's covered in our blood. Husbands and wives fight about it all night. Crowds swarm around judges. Kings go mad with greed and destroy entire cities — communities that took centuries to build — just to dig gold and silver from the ruins. Do you enjoy looking at your money bags sitting in the corner? Those are what make people scream until their eyes bulge out. Those are what fill courtrooms with noise. Those are what bring jurors from far away to decide whose greed is more justified.
The greatest hullabaloo is about money: this it is which wearies out the law-courts, sows strife between father and son, concocts poisons, and gives swords to murderers just as to soldiers: it is stained with our blood: on account of it husbands and wives wrangle all night long, crowds press round the bench of magistrates, kings rage and plunder, and overthrow communities which it has taken the labour of centuries to build, that they may seek for gold and silver in the ashes of their cities. Do you like to look at your money-bags lying in the corner? it is for these that men shout till their eyes start from their heads, that the law-courts ring with the din of trials, and that jurymen brought from great distances sit to decide which man’s covetousness is the more equitable.