Opulence Quotes

• Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.

  Adam Smith

  Peace, Justice, Littles

  Adam Smith, comte Germain Garnier, Dugald Stewart (1835). “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”, p.96

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• Opulence is the law of the universe, an abundant supply for every need if nothing is put in the way of its coming.

  Ralph Waldo Trine

  Law, Needs, Way

  Ralph Waldo Trine (2013). “The Wisdom of Ralph Waldo Trine”, p.109, Simon and Schuster

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• Luxury starts where functionality ends and where the true value is personal and so has no price or reason.

  Marcel Wanders

  Luxury, Design, Priceless

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• To all my friends without distinction I am ready to display my opulence: come one, come all; and whosoever likes to take a share is welcome to the wealth that lies within my soul.

  Antisthenes

  Lying, Soul, Likes

  "Symposium" by Xenophon, (iv. 35),

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• Protection is the first necessity of opulence and luxury.

  Joseph Conrad

  Luxury, Firsts, Protection

  Joseph Conrad (2015). “The Complete Works of Joseph Conrad: 20 Novels & 26 Short Stories (Including Memoirs, Essays & Letters in One Single Edition): Classics of World Literature from One of the Greatest English Novelists: Heart of Darkness, The Duel, Lord Jim, The Secret Agent, Nostromo, The Shadow-Line & Under Western Eyes”, p.2018, e-artnow

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• With the greater part of rich people, the chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade of riches, which in their eye is never so complete as when they appear to possess those decisive marks of opulence which nobody can possess but themselves.

  Adam Smith

  Eye, People, Riches

  An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations vol. 1, bk. 1, ch. 11 (1776)

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• If the demand for home commodities should be diminished, because of the fall of rent on the part of the landlords, it will be increased in a far greater degree by the increased opulence of the commercial classes.

  David Ricardo

  Fall, Home, Class

  David Ricardo, John Ramsay McCulloch (1852). “The Works of David Ricardo. With a notice of the life and writings of the author: by J. R. McCulloch”, p.387

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• In a community where public services have failed to keep abreast of private consumption things are very different. Here, in an atmosphere of private opulence and public squalor, the private goods have full sway.

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Community, Atmosphere, Different

  John Kenneth Galbraith (1998). “The Affluent Society”, p.191, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• With the greater part of rich people, the chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade of riches.

  Adam Smith

  Life, Success, People

  An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations vol. 1, bk. 1, ch. 11 (1776)

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• If poverty makes man groan, he yawns in opulence. When fortune exempts us from labor, nature overwhelms us with time.

  Antoine Rivarol

  Men, Poverty, Fortune

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• Poverty always looks the same, no matter where you come across it. The rich can always express their opulence by varying their lives. Different houses, clothes, cars. Or thoughts, dreams. But for the poor there is nothing but compulsory grayness, the only form of expression available to poverty.

  Henning Mankell

  Dream, Expression, Clothes

  FaceBook post by Henning Mankell from Dec 28, 2012

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• We are suggesting a new kind of opulence, of intelligent indulgence over blind gluttony.

  Naeem Khan

  Intelligent, Kind, Blind

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• Utility is when you have one telephone, luxury is when you have two, and paradise is when you have none.

  Doug Larson

  Work, Two, Luxury

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• The extremes of opulence and of want are more remarkable, and more constantly obvious, in [Great Britain] than in any other place that I ever saw.

  John Quincy Adams

  Want, Saws, Britain

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• Defense is superior to opulence.

  Adam Smith

  Defense, Economy, Superiors

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• Only economists mistake physical opulence for riches.

  Aldo Leopold

  Mistake, Riches, Economist

  Aldo Leopold (1972). “Round River”, p.29, Oxford University Press

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• Religion is for the man in humble life, and to raise his nature, and to put him in mind of a state in which the privileges of opulence will cease, when he will be equal by nature, and may be more than equal by virtue.

  Edmund Burke

  Humble, Men, Mind

  Edmund Burke (1852). “The works and correspondence of...Edmund Burke”, p.231

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• It is with the approach of winter that cats...wear their richest fur and assume an air of sumptuous and delightful opulence.

  Pierre Loti

  Cat, Winter, Air

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• The opulence of Wilde is a bit too florid for Sherlock, who is a much darker character, ... fascinated by the human condition, but also overwhelmed by it.

  Rupert Everett

  Character, Overwhelmed, Wilde

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• Those who have past much of their lives in this great city, look upon its opulence and its multitudes, its extent and variety, with cold indifference; but an inhabitant of the remoter parts of the kingdom is immediately distinguished by a kind of dissipated curiosity, a busy endeavour to divide his attention amongst a thousand objects, and a wild confusion of astonishment and alarm.

  Samuel Johnson

  Past, Cities, Confusion

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy, Francis Pearson Walesby (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D..: The Adventurer and Idler”, p.41

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• Riches are oft by guilt and baseness earn'd;
  Or dealt by chance to shield a lucky knave,
  Or throw a cruel sunshine on a fool.
  But for one end, one much-neglected use,
  Are riches worth your care; (for nature's wants
  Are few, and without opulence supplied;)
  This noble end is, to produce the soul;
  To show the virtues in their fairest light;
  To make humanity the minister
  Of bounteous Providence; and teach the breast
  The generous luxury the gods enjoy.

  John Armstrong

  Sunshine, Light, Luxury

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• "If you die, you get to heaven; and if you win, you enjoy the earth" (Gita). Even if you die in this attempt, well and good, many will take up the work, following your example. And if you succeed, you will live a life of great opulence.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Winning, Heaven, Good Man

  Swami Vivekananda (2016). “Vivekananda Reader”, p.332, Advaita Ashrama (A publication branch of Ramakrishna Math, Belur Math)

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• Plenty is the original cause of many of our needs; and even the poverty, which is so frequent and distressful in civilized nations, proceeds often from that change of manners which opulence has produced. Nature makes us poor only when we want necessaries; but custom gives the name of poverty to the want of superfluities.

  Samuel Johnson

  Names, Giving, Needs

  Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”

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• What very often happens when people make films about rich people, the camera is quite mesmerised by the opulence and quite theatrical in fact.

  Tilda Swinton

  People, Cameras, Facts

  Source: www.indielondon.co.uk

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• It is a thing which every sensible American should learn from every sensible Englishman, that glare and glitter, gimcracks and gewgaws, are not indispensable to domestic solacement.

  Herman Melville

  Glitter, Glare, Should

  Herman Melville (2016). “Herman Melville The Dover Reader”, p.505, Courier Dover Publications

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