The Miser and His Gold
Aesop's Fables · 1 min read
A miser, having converted his entire life's savings into gold, buried it secretly beneath a stone in his garden and visited the spot every single day, digging it up just to gaze at it lovingly before burying it again, never once spending a single coin.
A thief, having secretly watched this daily ritual, dug up the gold one night and made off with all of it. The miser, discovering the empty hole the next morning, wailed and wept uncontrollably, drawing the attention of a neighbor who came to see what had happened.
Hearing the whole story, the neighbor asked a pointed question: "Since you never spent even a single coin of it, why not simply bury a stone of the same size in its place, and visit that instead? It would serve you exactly as well as the gold ever did, since you never used either for anything." The miser, forced to admit the neighbor was right, finally understood that wealth never used is worth no more than a stone in the ground.
Moral of the story
Wealth that is never used serves you no better than a worthless stone.