superfluity Quotes

When people say to me less is more I reply, 'More is more'.

Some people say that less is more. But I think more is more.

But life is short: while one lives, everything is lacking; when one is dead, everything is superfluous.

Superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer.

But for me, dinner at a fine restaurant was the ultimate luxury. It was the very height of civilization. For what was civilization but the intellect's ascendancy out of the doldrums of necessity (shelter, sustenance and survival) into the ether of the finely superfluous (poetry, handbags and haute cuisine)? So removed from daily life was the whole experience that when all was rotten to the core, a fine dinner could revive the spirits. If and when I had twenty dollars left to my name, I was going to invest it right here in an elegant hour that couldn't be hocked.

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.

Trade is nothing else but a Commutation of Superfluities; for instance: I give mine, what I can spare, for somewhat of yours, which I want, and you can spare.

I don't believe less is more. I believe that more is more. I believe that less is less, fat fat, thin thin and enough is enough.

The accouterments of life were so rich and varied, so elaborated, that almost no place at all was left for life itself. Each and every accessory was so costly and beautiful that it had an existence above and beyond the purpose it was meant to serve – confusing the observer and absorbing attention.

Too much of something is never good.

Sovereigns always see with pleasure a taste for the arts of amusement and superfluity, which do not result in the exportation of bullion, increase among their subjects. They very well know that, besides nourishing that littleness of mind which is proper to slavery, the increase of artificial wants only binds so many more chains upon the people.

What is charm then? The free giving of a grace, the spending of something given by nature in her role of spendthrift ... something extra, superfluous, unnecessary, essentially a power thrown away.

Pessimists are not boring. Pessimists are right. Pessimists are superfluous.

As for plenty, we had not only for necessity, conveniency and decency, but for delight and pleasure to superfluity.

I suppose the longer anyone spends on earth, the closer we all get to becoming superfluous characters.

Thus the public use of reason and freedom is nothing but a dessert, a sumptuous dessert.

Plentitude, when too plentitudinous, was worst than destitution, for obviously what could one do, if there was nothing one could not?

Rain which falls upon the sea is useless; so is food for one who is satiated; in vain is a gift for one who is wealthy; and a burning lamp during the daytime is useless.

Full is the earth of the superfluous; marred is life by the many-too-many. May they be decoyed out of this life by the "life eternal"!

Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only.

We are ignorant of things necessary, because we learn things superfluous and unnecessary

In her abhorrrence of a vacuum, Nature, for the furtherance of her favorite hobby, has often to resort to strange devices. If she could but understand that vacuity is sometimes better than superfluity!

There is such a thing as having too much of a good thing.

It is manifestly contrary to the law of nature, however defined, that a handful of people should gorge themselves with superfluities while the hungry majority goes in need of necessities.

Art can never match the luxury and superfluity of Nature. In the former all is seen; it cannot afford concealed wealth, and is niggardly in comparison; but Nature, even when she is scant and thin outwardly, satisfies us still by the assurance of a certain generosity at the roots.