A collection of quotes on the topic of luxury, life, people, use.
Other
“Luxury is the ease of a t-shirt in a very expensive dress.”
Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 62–75.
Collected Works
Source: A Letter to American Workingmen: From the Socialist Soviet Republic of Russia
"Down the River", p. 148
Desert Solitaire (1968)
Variations of this piece have also been misattributed to Andy Rooney and Woody Allen. The original source is a variation on a piece by Sean Morey. ( "snopes.com: Andy Rooney on Everything", Snopes.com, 2012-09-09 http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/rooney3.asp, )
Misattributed
“A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and
understanding.”
Source: The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man
Speech (21 June 1921), Ion Smeaton Munro, Through Fascism to World Power: A History of the Revolution in Italy, 27 January 2008 http://books.google.com/books?id=DML39RmvsmYC&pg=PA120&dq=%E2%80%9CWe+deny+your+internationalism%22+mussolini&lr=&sig=gTHVLgfaIKPCn_jW8f0phjDKrAI,
1920s
Political questionnaire response (1952)
“The soldiers of our land know no luxury, but glory.”
Los soldados de la patria no conocen el lujo, sino la gloria.
Documentos del archivo de San Martín (1911) by Museo Mitre, Vol. 11, p. 385
“Holiness is not the luxury of the few; it is a simply duty”
Address to the National Prayer Breakfast (3 February 1994) http://www.ewtn.com/New_library/breakfast.htm.
Unsourced variant or paraphrase: I think it is very good when people suffer. To me, that is like the kiss of Jesus.
1990s
Context: Holiness is not the luxury of the few; it is a simply duty, for you and for me, because Jesus has very clearly stated, "Be ye holy as my father in heaven is holy." So let us pray for each other that we grow in love for each other, and through this love become holy as Jesus wants us to be for he died out of love for us.
One day I met a lady who was dying of cancer in a most terrible condition. And I told her, I say, "You know, this terrible pain is only the kiss of Jesus — a sign that you have come so close to Jesus on the cross that he can kiss you." And she joined her hands together and said, "Mother Teresa, please tell Jesus to stop kissing me".
“I absolutely loathe luxury. It is the one thing I cannot stand.”
Source: Letter to Edward Lytton Bulwer from Constantinople, Turkey (27 December 1830), quoted in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Volume I. 1804–1859 (1929), p. 174
“Love is like any other luxury. You have no right to it unless you can afford it.”
Source: The Way We Live Now, ch. 84. (1875)
Source: Twilight of the Idols
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Suffering and Greatness of Richard Wagner (1933)
As quoted in "On the Fortune of Alexander" by Plutarch, 332 a-b
Sec. 60
The Antichrist (1888)
“A library is not a luxury, but one of the necessaries of life.”
Eyes and Ears (1862)
Miscellany
Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1846/feb/20/commercial-policy-customs-corn-laws in the House of Commons (20 February 1846).
1840s
Confusion of Feelings or Confusion: The Private Papers of Privy Councillor R. Von D (1927)
1910s, The World Movement (1910)
“O mortals, from your fellows' blood abstain,
Nor taint your bodies with a food profane:
While corn, and pulse by Nature are bestow'd,
And planted orchards bend their willing load;
While labour'd gardens wholesom herbs produce,
And teeming vines afford their gen'rous juice;
Nor tardier fruits of cruder kind are lost,
But tam'd with fire, or mellow'd by the frost;
While kine to pails distended udders bring,
And bees their hony redolent of Spring;
While Earth not only can your needs supply,
But, lavish of her store, provides for luxury;
A guiltless feast administers with ease,
And without blood is prodigal to please.”
Parcite, mortales, dapibus temerare nefandis
corpora! sunt fruges, sunt deducentia ramos
pondere poma suo tumidaeque in vitibus uvae,
sunt herbae dulces, sunt quae mitescere flamma
mollirique queant; nec vobis lacteus umor
eripitur, nec mella thymi redolentia florem:
prodiga divitias alimentaque mitia tellus
suggerit atque epulas sine caede et sanguine praebet.
Book XV, 75–82 (from Wikisource); on vegetarianism, as the following quote
Metamorphoses (Transformations)
Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 189.
“Contentment is natural wealth; luxury, artificial poverty.”
As reported by Charles Simmons in A Laconic Manual and Brief Remarker, containing over a thousand subjects alphabetically and systematically arranged (North Wrentham, Mass. 1852), p. 103 http://books.google.de/books?id=YOAyAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA103&dq=socrates. However, the original source of this statement is unknown.
Cf. Joseph Addison in The Spectator No. 574 Friday, July 30, 1714, p. 655 http://books.google.de/books?id=K1cdAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA655&dq=socrates: In short, content is equivalent to wealth, and luxury to poverty; or, to give the thought a more agreeable turn, "content is natural wealth," says Socrates: to which I shall add, "luxury is artificial poverty.".
Attributed
“I have always had a penchant for luxury, opulence, and prestige”
My Twisted World (2014), 19-22, UC Santa Barbara, Perspective on incelness
Suffering and Greatness of Richard Wagner (1933)
“Luxury is the opposite of the naturally necessary.”
Grundrisse (1857-1858)
Source: Notebook V, The Chapter on Capital, p. 448.
Letter to James F. Morton (10 February 1923), published in Selected Letters Vol. I (1965), p. 208
Non-Fiction, Letters, to James Ferdinand Morton, Jr.
"Science AMA Series: Stephen Hawking AMA Answers!", reddit.com (8 October 2015) https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/3nyn5i/science_ama_series_stephen_hawking_ama_answers/cvsdmkv/; also quoted in "Stephen Hawking Says We Should Really Be Scared Of Capitalism, Not Robots" Huffington Post (8 October 2015) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/stephen-hawking-capitalism-robots_us_5616c20ce4b0dbb8000d9f15
Adapted from a passage in Schools of Hellas http://www.archive.org/stream/schoolsofhellasa008878mbp#page/n105/mode/2up, the posthumously published dissertation of Kenneth John Freeman (1907). The original passage was a paraphrase of the complaints directed against young people in ancient times. See the Quote Investigator article http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehaving-children-in-ancient-times/.
see Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations Requested from the Congressional Research Service, Edited by Suzy Platt, 1989, number 195 http://www.bartleby.com/73/195.html. Last line: "Evidently, the quotation is spurious."
See also this Google Answers discussion http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=398104 about the topic.
Somewhat similar sentiments are in ( lines 961–985 http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0241:card%3D961) of Aristophanes' The Clouds, a comedic play known for its caricature of Socrates. However, the lines are delivered by the character "Right" or "Just Discourse", not Socrates.
Misattributed
Letter to James F. Morton (10 February 1923), published in Selected Letters Vol. I (1965), p. 208
Non-Fiction, Letters, to James Ferdinand Morton, Jr.
Variations of this piece have been misattributed to Andy Rooney, George Carlin, and Woody Allen. The original source is a variation on a piece by Sean Morey. ( "snopes.com: Andy Rooney on Everything", Snopes.com, 2012-09-09 http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/rooney3.asp, )
Misattributed
“Pessimism is a luxury that a Jew can never allow himself.”
The Observer (29 December 1974)
Presidency (1977–1981), Farewell Address (1981)
Context: We live in a time of transition, an uneasy era which is likely to endure for the rest of this century. During the period we may be tempted to abandon some of the time-honored principles and commitments which have been proven during the difficult times of past generations. We must never yield to this temptation. Our American values are not luxuries, but necessities— not the salt in our bread, but the bread itself.
“It is a pity that you students aren't fully aware of the luxury and abundance in which you live.”
The Glass Bead Game (1943)
Context: It is a pity that you students aren't fully aware of the luxury and abundance in which you live. But I was exactly the same when I was still a student. We study and work, don't waste much time, and think we may rightly call ourselves industrious — but we are scarcely conscious of all we could do, all that we might make of our freedom. Then we suddenly receive a call from the hierarchy, we are needed, are given a teaching assignment, a mission, a post, and from then on move up to a higher one, and unexpectedly find ourselves caught in a network of duties that tightens the more we try to move inside it. All the tasks are in themselves small, but each one has to be carried out at its proper hour, and the day has far more tasks than hours. That is well; one would not want it to be different. But if we ever think, between classroom, archives, secretariat, consulting room, meetings, and official journeys — if we ever think of the freedom we possessed and have lost, the freedom for self-chosen tasks, for unlimited, far-flung studies, we may well feel the greatest yearning for those days, and imagine that if we ever had such freedom again we would fully enjoy its pleasures and potentialities.
From the esplanade wall at Oenoanda, now in Turkey, as recorded by Diogenes of Oenoanda
Addressing his troops prior to the Battle of Issus, as quoted in Anabasis Alexandri by Arrian Book II, 7
Context: Our enemies are Medes and Persians, men who for centuries have lived soft and luxurious lives; we of Macedon for generations past have been trained in the hard school of danger and war. Above all, we are free men, and they are slaves. There are Greek troops, to be sure, in Persian service — but how different is their cause from ours! They will be fighting for pay — and not much of at that; we, on the contrary, shall fight for Greece, and our hearts will be in it. As for our foreign troops — Thracians, Paeonians, Illyrians, Agrianes — they are the best and stoutest soldiers in Europe, and they will find as their opponents the slackest and softest of the tribes of Asia. And what, finally, of the two men in supreme command? You have Alexander, they — Darius!
2018, "You are stealing our future" (December 2018)
Pt. 1, Ch. 2 - p.36
Giovanni's Room (1956)
"Lettre XII: sur M. Pope et quelques autres poètes fameux," Lettres philosophiques (1756 edition)
Variants:
He looked on everything as imitation. The most original writers, he said, borrowed one from another. Boyardo has imitated Pulci, and Ariofio Boyardo. The instruction we find in books is like fire; we fetch it from our neighbour, kindle it as home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.
Historical and Critical Memoirs of the Life and Writings of M. de Voltaire (1786) by Louis Mayeul Chaudon, p. 348
What we find in books is like the fire in our hearths. We fetch it from our neighbors, we kindle it at home, we communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.
As translated in Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists (2008), by James Geary, p. 373
Original: (fr) Ainsi, presque tout est imitation. L’idée des Lettres persanes est prise de celle de l’Espion turc. Le Boiardo a imité le Pulci, l’Arioste a imité le Boiardo. Les esprits les plus originaux empruntent les uns des autres. Michel Cervantes fait un fou de son don Quichotte; mais Roland est-il autre chose qu'un fou? Il serait difficile de décider si la chevalerie errante est plus tournée en ridicule par les peintures grotesques de Cervantes que par la féconde imagination de l'Arioste. Métastase a pris la plupart de ses opéras dans nos tragédies françaises. Plusieurs auteurs anglais nous ont copiés, et n'en ont rien dit. Il en est des livres comme du feu de nos foyers; on va prendre ce feu chez son voisin, on l’allume chez soi, on le communique à d’autres, et il appartient à tous.
“Life is too short, or too long, for me to allot myself the luxury of living it so badly.”
Variant: Life is too short, or too long, for me to allow myself the luxury of living it so badly.
Source: Eleven Minutes
“Happy endings are a luxury of fiction.”
Source: Priestess of the White
Source: Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic
“Power brings a man many luxuries, but a clean pair of hands is seldom among them.”
Source: Imperium: A Novel of Ancient Rome
“Belief in mysteries, any manner of mysteries, is the only lasting luxury in life.”
Source: The Witches of Worm
“It is a luxury to be understood.”
“what a luxury it was for people to be
able to hold their loved ones whenever they wanted.”
Variant: what a luxury it was for people to hold their loved ones whenever they wanted
Source: P.S. I Love You
Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Barrayar (1991)
“I couldn't afford luxuries like embarrassment”
Swimming Across: A Memoir
“When it is moving on luxurious wings,
The soul is lost in pleasant smotherings.”
Source: Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne
“Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves.”
“Every luxury must be paid for, and everything is a luxury, starting with being in this world.”
Source: Il mestiere di vivere: Diario 1935-1950
“Habit converts luxurious enjoyments into dull and daily necessities.”
Source: Point Counter Point (1928), Ch. 17
Context: Ever since his mother’s second marriage Spandrell had always perversely made the worst of things, chosen the worst course, deliberately encouraged his own worst tendencies. It was with debauchery that he distracted his endless leisures. He was taking his revenge on her... He was spiting her, spiting himself, spiting God. He hoped there was a hell for him to go to and regretted his inability to believe in its existence.... it was even exciting in those early days to know that one was doing something bad and wrong. But there is in debauchery something so intrinsically dull, something so absolutely and hopelessly dismal, that it is only the rarest beings, gifted with much less than the usual amount of intelligence and much more than the usual intensity of appetite, who can go on actively enjoying a regular course of vice or continue actively to believe in its wickedness. Most habitual debauchees are debauchees not because they enjoy debauchery, but because they are uncomfortable when deprived of it. Habit converts luxurious enjoyments into dull and daily necessities.
“You gotta be rich to be insane, Hol. Losing your mind is not a luxury for the middle class.”
Source: P.S. I Love You
