The man who goes to an extreme in saving money, becomes more and more saving. The man who goes to extreme in developing business, becomes more and more devoted to that object, and increasingly indifferent to everything else. The man who goes to extremes in careful provision for family exigencies, becomes more and more careful and anxious, until the words of Christ, which tell us to be without carefulness, cease to have the least meaning for him. All these classes of extremists -- and they are legion -- sink at last into a state of spiritual turptitude, in which all sensibility is gone. The present world, which they have loved, has slain them, while they continue to think they are alive.

Robert Roberts, Seasons of Comfort, page 159