Misers Quotes - Page 2

• Want of money and the distress of a thief can never be alleged as the cause of his thieving, for many honest people endure greater hardships with fortitude. We must therefore seek the cause elsewhere than in want of money, for that is the miser's passion, not the thief s.

  William Blake

  Passion, People, Thieves

  William Blake (1977). “The Portable William Blake”, p.135, Penguin

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• To be a book-collector is to combine the worst characteristics of a dope fiend with those of a miser.

  Robertson Davies

  Book, Writing, Dope

  Robertson Davies (1949). “The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks”, Clarke, Irwin

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• Oh, I wish I were a miser; being a miser must be so occupying.

  Gertrude Stein

  Wish, Literature, Misery

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• The irrational in the human has something about it altogether repulsive and terrible, as we see in the maniac, the miser, the drunkard or the ape.

  George Santayana

  Apes, Irrational, Terrible

  George Santayana, Marianne S. Wokeck, Martin A. Coleman, James Gouinlock (2013). “The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress: Reason in Society, Volume VII, Book Two”, p.44, MIT Press

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• Experiences are savings which a miser puts aside. Wisdom is an inheritance which a wastrel cannot exhaust.

  Karl Kraus

  Wisdom, Experience, Saving

  Karl Kraus (1976). “Half-truths & One-and-a-half Truths: Selected Aphorisms”

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• Conquer anger by love, evil by good; Conquer the miser with liberality, and the liar with truth.

  Gautama Buddha

  Buddhist, Liars, Evil

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• It is better to lose health like a spendthrift than to waste it like a miser.

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  Health, Waste, Spendthrift

  Virginibus Puerisque Ch. 5

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• Money never can be well managed if sought solely through the greed of money for its own sake. In all meanness there is a defect of intellect as well as of heart. And even the cleverness of avarice is but the cunning of imbecility.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Money, Heart, Greed

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• To the eyes of a miser a guinea is more beautiful than the sun, and a bag worn with the use of money has more beautiful proportions than a vine filled with grapes.

  William Blake

  Beautiful, Money, Eye

  William Blake (2008). “The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake”, p.702, Univ of California Press

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• The devil lies brooding in the miser's chest.

  Thomas Fuller

  Lying, Devil, Brooding

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• Tis strange the miser should his cares employTo gain those riches he can ne'er enjoy;Is it less strange the prodigal should wasteHis wealth to purchase what he ne'er can taste?

  Alexander Pope

  Care, Riches, Taste

  Alexander Pope, William Roscoe (1824). “The Works of Alexander Pope: Esq. with Notes and Illustrations by Himself and Others. To which are Added, a New Life of the Author, an Estimate of His Poetical Character and Writings, and Occasional Remarks”, p.377

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• Go miser go, for money sell your soul. Trade wares for wares and trudge from pole to pole, So others may say when you are dead and gone. See what a vast estate he left his son.

  John Dryden

  War, Son, Soul

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• Man hoards himself when he has nothing to give away.

  Edward Dahlberg

  Men, Giving, Misery

  Edward Dahlberg (1965). “Reasons of the heart”

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• The miser and the glutton are two facetious buzzards: one hides his store, and the other stores his hide.

  Josh Billings

  Two, Buzzards, Stores

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• I am as comfortless as a pilgrim with peas in his shoes - and as cold as Charity, Chastity or any other Virtue.

  Lord Byron

  Shoes, Charity, Misery

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• The only way to avoid being miserable is not to have enough leisure to wonder whether you are happy or not.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Motivational, Happiness, Happy

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• Some men have a necessity to be mean, as if they were exercising a faculty which they had to partially neglect since early childhood.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Mean, Exercise, Men

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• Tis the only comfort of the miserable to have partners in their woes.

  Miguel de Cervantes

  Sadness, Comfort, Literature

  Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Pierre Antoine Motteux (1719). “The history of the renowned don Quixote de la Mancha. Tr. by several hands: and publ. by P. Motteux”, p.242

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• Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.

  William Shakespeare

  Funny, Depression, Husband

  'The Tempest' (1611) act 2, sc. 2, l. [42]

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• It was said of old Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, that she never puts dots over her I s, to save ink.

  Horace Walpole

  Ink, Dots, Misery

  Horace Walpole, Peter Cunningham (1859). “The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Oxford”, p.22

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• A thorough: miser must possess considerable strength of character to bear the self-denial imposed by his penuriousness. Equal sacrifices, endured voluntarily in a better cause, would make a saint or a martyr.

  William Benton Clulow

  Character, Sacrifice, Self

  William Benton Clulow (1843). “Aphorisms and Reflections: A Miscellany of Thought and Opinion”, p.426

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• Misers get up early in the morning; and burglars, I am informed, get up the night before.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Morning, Night, Up Early

  "Tremendous trifles". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1909.

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• What greater evil could you wish a miser, than long life?

  Publilius Syrus

  Long, Evil, Wish

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• Do not discourage your children from hoarding, if they have a taste to it; whoever lays up his penny rather than part with it for a cake, at least is not the slave of gross appetite; and shows besides a preference always to be esteemed, of the future to the present moment.

  Samuel Johnson

  Children, Cake, Taste

  Samuel Johnson (1836). “Johnsoniana, Or, Supplement to Boswell: Being Anecdotes and Sayings of Dr. Johnson”, p.47

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• The coward regards himself as cautious, the miser as thrifty.

  Publilius Syrus

  Psychology, Coward, Thrifty

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