A strange species we are; we can stand anything God and nature can throw at us save only plenty. If I wanted to destroy a nation, I would give it too much, and I would have it on its knees, miserable, greedy, sick.
John Steinbeck to Adlai Stevenson
We can never have enough of that which we really do not want.
Not just in commerce but in the world of ideas too our age is putting on a veritable clearance sale. Everything can be had so dirt cheap that one begins to wonder whether in the end anyone will want to make a bid.
We are stripped bare by the curse of plenty.
The best things beyond their measure cloy.
When people say to me less is more I reply, 'More is more'.
It's an embarrassment of riches because you have directors who don't better. You end up with so much stuff going on the screen that you don't know where to look, and that's what I consider self-indulgent.
There's enough music in the world. There are enough rock stars.
In an orchard there should be enough to eat, enough to lay up, enough to be stolen, and enough to rot on the ground.
Where there is too much, something is missing.
The excessive increase of anything causes a reaction in the opposite direction.
Books are menaced by books. Any excess of information produces silence.
I have rooms full of little dongly things and don't want any more. Half the little dongly things I've got, I don't even know what gizmo they're for. More importantly, half the gizmos I've got, I don't know where their little dongly thing is.
I haven’t seen so much pork since I gave out ribbons at the Iowa State Fair.
It's like everything in your life is wonderful, but you have so much wonderful - this is all going to sound horrible - but when you have so much wonderful, it isn't wonderful because you don't actually have time to enjoy it.
With much we surfeit; plenty makes us poor.
There's no shortage of material in life.
Luxurious food and drinks, in no way protect you from harm. Wealth beyond what is natural, is no more use than an overflowing container. Real value is not generated by theaters, and baths, perfumes or ointments, but by philosophy.
Profusion gives pleasure up to a point; then we become squeamish.
In a world of more brilliance words don't mean anything.
I don't know what of our culture is going to survive, or if we survive. If you look at the Greek plays, they're really good. And there's just a handful of them. Well, how good would they be if there were 2,500 of them? But that's the future looking back at us. Anything you can think of, there's going to be millions of them. Just the sheer number of things will devalue them. I don't care whether it's art, literature, poetry or drama, whatever. The sheer volume of it will wash it out. I mean, if you had thousands of Greek plays to read, would they be that good? I don't think so.
The world has become too full of many things, an over furnished room.
What's the difference? Ninety million or 80 million. You still can't spend it all.
The superfluous, a very necessary thing.
We have, instead (of soot and dirt), disorganization. We have this proliferation of goods. It's the disease of the time.
