Extravagance Quotes
More Extravagance Quotes
I don't know what it is about fecundity that so appals. I suppose it is the teeming evidence that birth and growth, which we value, are ubiquitous and blind, that life itself is so astonishingly cheap, that nature is as careless as it is bountiful, and that with extravagance goes a crushing waste that will one day include our own cheap lives.
Annie Dillard— 1974 Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, ch.10.
Our love of what is beautiful does not lead to extravagance; our love of the things of the mind does not make us soft. We regard wealth as something to be properly used, rather than as something to boast about. As for poverty, no one need be ashamed to admit it, the real shame is in not taking practical measures to escape from it.
Pericles
It is better to have a plain, substantial building, with no extravagance about it, but without a debt, than to have the most splendid specimen of Gothic architecture that is overlaid by a mortgage.
william mackergo taylor— P. 151. (Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895))
To how much lying, extravagance, hypocrisy and servilism does not the fear of ridicule lead? Human respect makes us cowards and slaves. It may deter from evil, but much oftener it drives to baseness. “We are too much afraid,” said Cato, “of death, exile and poverty.”
john lancaster spalding— p. 171 (Aphorisms and Reflections (1901))
This monstrous mixture of imbecility, extravagance and political hysteria, better known as the Bill for the future government of Ireland this farrago of superlative nonsense, is to be put in motion for this reason and no other: to gratify the ambition of an old man in a hurry.
Lord Randolph Henry Spencer Churchill— 1886 Pamphlet attacking Gladstone's Home Rule Bill, Jun.
My heart's so full of joy, That I shall do some wild extravagance Of love in public; and the foolish world, Which knows not tenderness, will think me mad.
john dryden— 1678 All for Love, or The World Well Lost, act 2.
We were at last in Monte Cristo's country, fairly into the country of the fabulous, where extravagance ceases to exist because everything is extravagant, and where the wildest dreams come true.
willa cather— Ch. 12 (6 September 1902) near Marseilles, France.
I adore extravagance but I abhor waste.
Aaron Copland— Aaron Copland: the Life and Work of an Uncommon Man, ISBN 0805049096.
He calls his extravagance, generosity; and his trusting everybody, universal benevolence.
Oliver Goldsmith— Act I (The Good-Natured Man (1768))
The substitution of meaning accounts for the grasping of misers as well as the extravagance of spendthrifts. Karl Marx well understood this peculiar transformation of flesh into coin.
lewis h. lapham— Chapter 8, Holy Dread, p. 211
But bounty and hospitality very seldom lead to extravagance; though vanity almost always does.
Adam Smith— Chapter III, Part V, p. 987
I can look back . . . at two distinct periods of opinion whose foundations I have successively come to distrust a period before 1919 or so, when the weight of classic authority unduly influenced me, and another period from 1919 to about 1925, when I placed too high a value on the elements of revolt, florid colour, and emotional extravagance or intensity.
h. p. lovecraft— Letter to August Derleth (1929), quoted in "H.P. Lovecraft, a Life" by S.T. Joshi, p. 307
I was born ostentatious. They will list my name in the dictionary someday. They will use 'Imeldific' to mean ostentatious extravagance.
imelda marcos— As quoted in an Associated Press report (April 1998)
Poverty is never dishonourable in itself, but only when it is a mark of sloth, intemperance, extravagance, or thoughtlessness. When, on the other hand, it is the handmaid of a sober, industrious, righteous, and brave man, who devotes all his powers to the service of the people, it is the sign of a lofty spirit that harbours no mean thoughts
Plutarch— Plutarch, Comparison of Aristides and Cato
Our leaders attempt to blame their failures on circumstances beyond their control, on false estimates by unknown, unidentifiable experts who rewrite modern history in an attempt to convince us our high standard of living, the result of thrift and hard work, is somehow selfish extravagance which we must renounce as we join in sharing scarcity.
— Ronald Reagan, Official Announcement of being a candidate for U.S. President (1979-11-13).
