"...let every man, in his private capacity, maintain sobriety, purity, temperance, industry and self-government, and attend more to the culture of his mind, the improvement of his virtue, and the regulation of the manners of his domestics, than to the indulgence of pleasure or the accumulation of wealth; let this be the general spirit and conduct of mankind, and what will be wanting to make them as happy as the condition of mortals will permit, or as beings in a state of probation can reasonably desire?" - Joseph Lathrop (found in American Political Writing during the Founding Era, Vol I, pg. 665)
If the majority of Americans would focus on improving themselves rather than their income we would be a different country.
