As long as you go on licking the dust of the earth by loving it you cut yourself off from the God above. What is it that makes a person happy? You seek gold because you think gold will make you happy but gold will not make you happy. You imagine you will be happy with honor from men and worldly triumphs but worldly triumphs won’t make you happy. Whatever else you seek by licking the dust of the earth, you do it in order to be happy but nothing of earth can make you perfectly happy. It is because you want to be happy that you reach out for earthly things but such things bring their own sort of misery.

—Augustine, Sermon 231.4