None can be an impartial or wise observer of human life but from the vantage ground of what we should call voluntary poverty.
 Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854). copy citation

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Author Henry David Thoreau
Source Walden
Topic poverty life
Date 1854
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink https://www.gutenberg.org/files/205/205-h/205-h.htm

Context

“The ancient philosophers, Chinese, Hindoo, Persian, and Greek, were a class than which none has been poorer in outward riches, none so rich in inward. We know not much about them. It is remarkable that we know so much of them as we do. The same is true of the more modern reformers and benefactors of their race. None can be an impartial or wise observer of human life but from the vantage ground of what we should call voluntary poverty. Of a life of luxury the fruit is luxury, whether in agriculture, or commerce, or literature, or art. There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers. Yet it is admirable to profess because it was once admirable to live.” source