Time & Perspective Quote by Euripides

Thus truth unknown, thy pride was most deceived, Thyself as great thou vauntedst, in the power Of riches vainly elevate; but these Are nothing, their enjoyment frail and brief; Nature is firm, not riches; she remains For ever, and triumphant lifts her head. But unjust wealth, which sojourns with the base, Glitters for some short space, then flies away. (Lines 938–944). The modern quotation (“Wealth stays with us a little moment if at all: only our characters are steadfast, not our gold”) is a shortened/modernized paraphrase of a passage in Euripides’ tragedy *Electra* (Greek: Ἠλέκτρα), specifically around lines 938–944, where Electra rebukes Aegisthus for thinking wealth makes him strong/important and contrasts the fleeting nature of wealth with the steadfastness of one’s nature/character. Multiple secondary sources explicitly locate the thought at lines 938ff / 940–944 in *Electra*, though wording varies by translator (e.g., some render “character”/“nature” vs “gold”/“money”/“possessions”). The exact modern phrasing with “not our gold” appears to be a later rewording rather than a single canonical published translation line. SuperSummary reproduces a close modern-English phrasing and attributes it to lines 940–944; WIST Quotations provides the Greek lines and a range of older public-domain translations showing the underlying passage. The play’s date is commonly placed in the late 5th century BCE (often circa 413 BCE), but exact year is not definitively known; because the user asked for the ‘first published/spoken’ source, the best primary attribution is the ancient play itself, not a modern quote site.