Do Not Spoil What You Have

This sentiment is consistent with Vatican Saying 35 from the collection of Epicurean aphorisms preserved at the Vatican. Epicurus taught that the root of unhappiness is pleonexia — the insatiable desire for more — and that the antidote is apomnemoneysis, grateful recollection of past goods already enjoyed. True contentment, on this view, requires no addition of new goods; it requires only a clear-eyed appreciation of what one already possesses. The saying is widely cited in Epicurean anthologies though not definitively traced to a single surviving letter.