Aesop's Fables -The Miser and His Gold

The Miser and His Gold

Once upon a time there was a Miser who used to hide his gold at the foot of a tree in his garden. Every week he used to go and dig up the gold and gloat over how much of it he had. A robber noticed this, he went to the tree one night, dug up the gold and ran off with it! When the Miser next came to gloat over his treasure, he found nothing but the empty hole. He tore his hair and screamed so loudly that all the neighbours came to see what the matter was. The miser told them how he used to come and visit his gold but now someone has stolen it! "Did you ever take any of it out?" asked one of them.

"No," said he, "I only came to look at it."

"Then come again and look at the hole," said a neighbour; "it will do you just as much good."

And, the moral is…

Wealth unused might as well not exist.