I'll promise to go easier on drinking and to get to bed earlier

The words of Babe Ruth, “I’ll promise to go easier on drinking and to get to bed earlier, but not for you, fifty thousand dollars, or two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars will I give up women. They’re too much fun,” ring with the voice of a man larger than life, unashamed of his appetites and unwilling to bind his spirit for gold. In them we hear not only the boast of a ballplayer, but the eternal tension between discipline and desire, between the demands of society and the wild call of freedom.

In the ancient spirit, such words might have been spoken by a warrior who refuses to renounce wine or love, even at the command of a king. For what Ruth declares is that money, though mighty, cannot purchase joy. To him, the pleasures of companionship, of laughter, of passion, are treasures greater than the weight of gold. He lived not by the rules of moderation, but by the creed of vitality, where the fullness of life was worth more than any purse.

Consider Ruth’s own story: born into hardship, raised in an orphanage, he rose to become the most celebrated figure in baseball. Yet even as he shattered records and filled stadiums, he remained devoted to indulgence, to drinking, feasting, and chasing pleasures. His managers scolded him, his critics condemned him, but he refused to surrender what he saw as life’s true delights. For Ruth, greatness on the field was not separate from excess off the field—it was all part of living with abandon.

History remembers others who spoke in kind. Diogenes the Cynic, though poor, mocked those who sacrificed freedom for wealth, choosing instead to live by desire, however scandalous it seemed. Babe Ruth, in his own age, was a modern Diogenes with a bat in his hands—mocking restraint, thumbing his nose at convention, and insisting that joy was greater than reputation or riches.

So let this teaching endure: wealth may buy houses and titles, but it cannot buy the fire of the human spirit. To live is more than to earn; it is to taste, to love, to revel in the fleeting gifts of life. Ruth’s words are not a call to recklessness alone, but a reminder that joy must never be sold cheaply, not even for riches. For in the end, the man who laughed and lived fully will be remembered more than the miser who kept every rule.