Meaning of “Money is in some respects like fire; it…”

Moral printed after “Hercules and the Wagoner” in the Townsend translation; Hercules first tells the driver to help himself.

The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, maxim 14, in Darius Lyman’s 1856 English rendering; maxim order can vary across editions.

Moral printed after “The Widow and the Sheep”; the widow injures the sheep while trying to avoid the shearer’s expense.

Moral printed after “The Oak and the Woodcutters”; the oak laments wedges made from its own branches.

The Art of Money Getting, economy section; Project Gutenberg #8581. Barnum introduces the line while describing lifestyle expansion after financial success.

Henry IV, Part 1, Act V Scene 4; reviewed against the 1917 Yale Shakespeare edition edited by Samuel B. Hemingway, printed page 110 / scan leaf 124. Falstaff says 'The better part of valour is discretion' after counterfeiting death during the battle and immediately boasts that this discretion saved his life. It remains comic fictional self-justification rather than a universal rule for courage or risk.