This struck me – virtues that are but by-products of fear and poverty, may not be virtues at all.  If you have no money (or credit), lauding your frugality is hardly meaningful.

May your virtues come from you naturally rather than being forced upon you by fear or poverty or other lacks and curses.

“All your virtues are daughters of fear … All your virtues are daughters of poverty …”

Source: Nikos Kazantzakis,The Last Temptation, trans. P.A. Bien (London: Faber and Faber, 1983), p. 16

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