
“5040. Thrift is the Philosopher's Stone.”
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
Standing for Something: Ten Neglected Virtues That Will Heal Our Hearts and Homes.
“5040. Thrift is the Philosopher's Stone.”
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
“The opposite of consumption isn't thrift. It's generosity.”
The Value of Nothing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6P03nNeYiJo
“The further through life I drift
The more obvious it becomes that I am lacking in thrift.”
"A Penny Saved Is Impossible"
Good Intentions (1942)
1900s, Seventh Annual Message (1907)
Context: A heavy progressive tax upon a very large fortune is in no way such a tax upon thrift or industry as a like would be on a small fortune. No advantage comes either to the country as a whole or to the individuals inheriting the money by permitting the transmission in their entirety of the enormous fortunes which would be affected by such a tax; and as an incident to its function of revenue raising, such a tax would help to preserve a measurable equality of opportunity for the people of the generations growing to manhood. We have not the slightest sympathy with that socialistic idea which would try to put laziness, thriftlessness and inefficiency on a par with industry, thrift and efficiency; which would strive to break up not merely private property, but what is far more important, the home, the chief prop upon which our whole civilization stands. Such a theory, if ever adopted, would mean the ruin of the entire country — a ruin which would bear heaviest upon the weakest, upon those least able to shift for themselves. But proposals for legislation such as this herein advocated are directly opposed to this class of socialistic theories. Our aim is to recognize what Lincoln pointed out: The fact that there are some respects in which men are obviously not equal; but also to insist that there should be an equality of self-respect and of mutual respect, an equality of rights before the law, and at least an approximate equality in the conditions under which each man obtains the chance to show the stuff that is in him when compared to his fellows.
“The Conquest of the United States by Spain”, speech at Yale 1899 http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/sumner-boll-11-w-g-sumner-the-conquest-of-the-united-states-by-spain-1898.
also see Charles Dickens, Bleak House
p. 60
Why We Fail as Christians (1919)
Context: Thrift and foresight are among the chief teachings of all missionaries to the poor and the present day world has little sympathy for any parent—whether a Harold Skimpole, a Mrs. Jellyby, a Jean Jacques Rousseau, or a Leo Tolstoy—who for any cause whatsoever feels that he should give no thought for the morrow and that his children may live like the fowls of the air.
Mathematical Methods in Science (1977)
Context: Even if without the Scott's proverbial thrift, the difficulty of solving differential equations is an incentive to using them parsimoniously. Happily here is a commodity of which a little may be made to go a long way.... the equation of small oscillations of a pendulum also holds for other vibrational phenomena. In investigating swinging pendulums we were, albeit unwittingly, also investigating vibrating tuning forks.<!--p.224
"To Practice Thrift and Oppose Embezzlement (1952)
1950's