Extravagance Quotes - Page 5

• But in the present day men cast off gentleness, and are all for being bold; they spurn frugality, and retain only extravagance; they discard humility, and aim only at being first. Therefore they shall surely perish.

  Laozi

  Humility, Men, Firsts

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• The best results in the operation of a government wherein every citizen has a share largely depend upon a proper limitation of the purely partisan zeal and effort and a correct appreciation of the time when the heat of the partisan should be merged in the patriotism of the citizen. ... At this hour the animosities of political strife, the bitterness of partisan defeat, and the exultation of partisan triumph should be supplanted by an ungrudging acquiescence in the popular will and a sober, conscientious concern for the general weal. ... Public extravagance begets extravagance among the people.

  Grover Cleveland

  Appreciation, Government, People

  Grover Cleveland (1909). “Addresses, State Papers and Letters”

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• No country, however rich, can afford the waste of its human resources. Demoralization caused by vast unemployment is our greatest extravagance. Morally, it is the greatest menace to our social order.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Country, Order, Unemployment

  Roosevelt, Franklin D. (1938). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: F.D. Roosevelt, 1934, Volume 3”, p.420, Best Books on

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• The True Person avoids extremes, self-indulgence, and extravagance.

  Laozi

  Inspirational, Self, Indulgence

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• The current fashion in belligerent atheism usually involves flinging condemnation around with a kind of gallant extravagance, more or less in the direction of all faiths at once, with little interest in precise aim.

  David Bentley Hart

  Fashion, Atheism, Littles

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• Do you know of any more overwhelming and humbling expression for God's condescension and extravagance towards us human beings than that He places Himself, so to say, on the same level of choice with the world, just so that we may be able to choose; that God, if language dare speak thus, woos humankind - that He, the eternally strong one, woos sapless humanity? Yet, how insignificant is the young lover's choice between her pursuers by comparison with this choice between God and the world.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Christian, Strong, Expression

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• Great and unexpected successes are often the cause of foolish rushing into acts of extravagance.

  Demosthenes

  Rushing, Causes, Unexpected

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• No one as yet has approached the management of New York in a proper spirit; that is to say, regarding it as the shiftless outcome of squalid barbarism and reckless extravagance. No one is likely to do so, because reflections on the long narrow pig-trough are construed as malevolent attacks against the spirit and majesty of the American people, and lead to angry comparisons.

  Rudyard Kipling

  New York, Reflection, Pigs

  Rudyard Kipling (2013). “Delphi Collected Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated)”, p.4529, Delphi Classics

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• When I compare life to a dream I do not mean to denigrate it as some sort of meaningless fantasy. Life is too wonderful to be called an "illusion" unless we whisper the word in amazement, as we might when witnessing the most astonishing magic trick. What could be more magnificent than this glorious universe, in all its multifarious extravagance? Its awesome vastness and delicate detail. Its impersonal precision and intimate intensity. Its harsh necessities and lush sensuality. This dream of life is truly marvelous.

  Timothy Freke

  Dream, Mean, Gnosis

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• There was one bursting now, a delicate constellation of many-coloured stars which drifted down and lingered in the still air.... The final rocket went up, a really large one, a piece of reckless extravagance. Its sibilant uprush was impressive, dragonlike; it soared twice as high as any they had had before.... The sparks from the rocket came pouring down the sky in a slow golden cascade, vanishing one by one into a lake of darkness.

  Jan Struther

  Stars, Lakes, Air

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• 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

  Emotional, Two, Foundation

  Letter to August Derleth (1929), in "H.P. Lovecraft, a Life" by S.T. Joshi, (p. 307), 1996.

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• 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

  Mean, Men, Hands

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• We like the fine extravagance of that philosopher who declared that no man was as rich as all men ought to be.

  Edwin Percy Whipple

  Men, Poverty, Philosopher

  Edwin Percy Whipple (1875). “Success and Its Conditions”, p.293

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• When all moves equally (says Pascal), nothing seems to move as in a vessel under sail; and when all run by common consent into vice, none appear to do so. He that stops first, views as from a fixed point the horrible extravagance that transports the rest.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Running, Moving, Views

  Charles Caleb Colton (1828). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words Addressed to Those who Think”, p.39

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• We can never put ourselves in the shoes of children; we cannot fathom their thoughts, we lend them ours; and always following ourown reasoning, we stuff their heads with extravagance and error.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Education, Children, Errors

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• It may be affirmed, without extravagance, that the free institutions we enjoy, have developed the powers, and improved the condition, of our whole people, beyond any example in the world.

  Abraham Lincoln

  People, Example, World

  Abraham Lincoln, Terence Ball (2013). “Lincoln: Political Writings and Speeches”, p.135, Cambridge University Press

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• We hold the moral obligation of providing for old age, helpless infancy, and poverty is far superior to that of supplying the invented wants of courtly extravagance.

  Thomas Paine

  Justice, Age, Want

  Thomas Paine (2016). “THE AGE OF REASON - Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology (Including “The Life of Thomas Paine”): Deistic Critique of Bible and Christian Church”, p.350, e-artnow

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• Poverty is not dishonorable in itself, but only when it comes from idleness, intemperance, extravagance, and folly.

  Plutarch

  Poverty, Poor, Intemperance

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• To shut the door at the end of the workday, which does not spill over into evening. To throw away books after reading them so theydon't have to be dusted. To go through boxes on New Year's Eve and throw out half of what is inside. Sometimes for extravagance to pick a bunch of flowers for the one table. Other women besides me must have this daydream about a carefree life.

  Maxine Hong Kingston

  New Year, Work, Reading

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• Your book bill ought to be your biggest extravagance.

  C. S. Lewis

  Book, Bills, Ought

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• Nature is mythical and mystical always, and works with the license and extravagance of genius. She has her luxurious and florid style as well as art.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Art, Nature, Style

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.953, Delphi Classics

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• The extravagance of intellect outstrips the extravagance of desire.

  Mason Cooley

  Desire, Excess, Intellect

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• The Byzantines hammered away at their hard and orthodox symbols, because they could not be in a mood to believe that men could take a hint. The moderns drag out into lengths and reels of extravagance their new orthodoxy of being unorthodox, because they also cannot give a hint -- or take a hint. Yet all perfect and well-poised art is really a hint.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Art, Believe, Men

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• capital is the result of saving, and not of spending. The spendthrift who wastes his substance in riotous living decreases the capital of the country, and therefore the excuse often made for extravagance, that it is good for trade, is based upon false notions respecting capital.

  Millicent Fawcett

  Country, Substance, Saving

  Millicent Garrett Fawcett (1870). “Political Economy for Beginners”, p.28, London ; Cambridge : Macmillan

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• We must learn that competence is better than extravagance, that worth is better than wealth, that the golden calf we have worshiped has no more brains than that one of old which the Hebrews worshiped. So beware of money and of money's worth as the supreme passion of the mind. Beware of the craving for enormous acquisition.

  C. A. Bartol

  Money, Passion, Brain

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