When will the Miser’s Chest be full enough?
When will he cease his Bags to cram and stuff?
All Day he labours and all Night contrives,
Providing as if he’d an hundred Lives.
While endless Care cuts short the common Span:
So have I seen with Dropsy swoln, a Man,
Drink and drink more, and still unsatisfi’d,
Drink till Drink drown’d him, yet he thirsty dy’d.Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
Poor Richard (1735 ed.)
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Quotations about:
miser
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If he is poor who is full of Desires, nothing can equal the Poverty of the Ambitious and the Covetous.
[S’il est vrai que l’on soit pauvre par toutes les choses que l’on désire, l’ambitieux et l’avare languissent dans une extrême pauvreté.]Jean de La Bruyère (1645-1696) French essayist, moralist
The Characters [Les Caractères], ch. 6 “Of Gifts of Fortune [Des Biens de Fortune],” § 49 (6.49) (1688) [Browne ed. (1752)]
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(Source (French)). Alternate translations:If he is only poor who desires much, and is always in want; the Ambitious and the Covetous languish in extreme Poverty.
[Bullord ed. (1696)]If a Man is poor, by all the things which he longs for, the Ambitious and Covetous languish in extreme Poverty.
[Curll ed. (1713)]If a man be poor who wishes to have everything, then an ambitious and a miserly man languish in extreme poverty.
[tr. Van Laun (1885)]If it is true that poverty consists in desiring a great many things, the ambitious man and the miser suffer from extreme poverty.
[tr. Stewart (1970)]
He does not possess Wealth, it possesses him.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
Poor Richard (1734 ed.)
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To what extremes, O cursèd lust for gold
will you not drive man’s appetite?
[Per che non reggi tu, o sacra fame
de l’oro, l’appetito de’ mortali?]Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) Italian poet
The Divine Comedy [Divina Commedia], Book 2 “Purgatorio,” Canto 22, l. 40ff (22.40-41) [Statius] (1314) [tr. Musa (1981)]
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Statius is quoting Virgil (whose shade stands in front of him) from The Aeneid, Book 3, ll. 56-57:Quid non mortalia pectora cogis,
Auri sacra fames?
Unlike the phrase in that pagan book, which is purely about the corrupting power of greed and gold-lust, Dante's Italian and some translators make reference to a "holy hunger," a virtue/rule of proper attitude toward money and spending, criticized here for it not restraining humans from the sins of being either spendthrifts or misers -- a nod to Aristotle making sin about extremes and virtue about moderation. See Ciardi, Durling, Kirkpatrick, Princeton, and Sayers for more discussion.
(Source (Italian)). Alternate translations:Why, thou cursed thirst
Of gold! dost not with juster measure guide
The appetite of mortals?
[tr. Cary (1814)]Why should'st thou not restrain accursèd thirst
Of gold, the appetite of mortals lost?
[tr. Bannerman (1850)]To what impellest thou not, O cursed hunger
Of gold, the appetite of mortal men?
[tr. Longfellow (1867)]Why restrainest thou not, O holy hunger of gold, the desire of mortals?
[tr. Butler (1885)]To what lengths, O thou cursed thirst of gold,
Dost thou not rule the mortal appetite?
[tr. Minchin (1885)]O cursed hunger of gold, to what dost thou not impel the appetite of mortals?
[tr. Norton (1892)]Wherefore dost thou not regulate the lust of mortals, O hallowed hunger of gold?
[tr. Okey (1901)]To what, O cursed hunger for gold, dost thou not drive the appetite of mortals?
[tr. Sinclair (1939)]O hallowed hunger of gold, why dost thou not
The appetite of mortal men control?
[tr. Binyon (1943)]With what constraint constran'st thou not the lust
Of mortals, thou devoted greed of gold!
[tr. Sayers (1955)]To what do you not drive man's appetite,
O cursèd gold-lust!
[tr. Ciardi (1961)]Why do you not control the appetite
Of mortals, O you accurst hunger for gold?
[tr. Sisson (1981)]Why cannot you, o holy hunger
for gold, restrain the appetite of mortals?
[tr. Mandelbaum (1982)]O sacred hunger for gold, why do you not rule human appetite?
[tr. Kline (2002)]Why do you, O holy hunger for gold, not
govern the appetite of mortals?
[tr. Durling (2003)]You, awestruck hungering for gold! Why not
impose a rule on mortal appetite?
[tr. Kirkpatrick (2007)]To what end, O cursèd hunger for gold,
do you not govern the appetite of mortals?
[tr. Hollander/Hollander (2007)]Accursed craving for money, what is there, in
This world, you don't lead human beings to?
[tr. Raffel (2010)]
When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals. We shall be able to rid ourselves of many of the pseudo-moral principles which have hag-ridden us for two hundred years, by which we have exalted some of the most distasteful of human qualities into the position of the highest virtues. We shall be able to afford to dare to assess the money-motive at its true value. The love of money as a possession — as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyment and realities of life — will be recognized for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease.
John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) English economist
“Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren,” Nation and Athenaeum (1930-10-11)
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Originally a society talk in 1920, expanded to a lecture given in Madrid (1930-06). Reprinted in Essays in Persuasion, Part 5, ch. 2 (1931).
The miser iz a riddle. What he possesses he haint got, and what he leaves behind him he never had.
[The miser is a riddle. What he possesses he hasn’t got, and what he leaves behind him he never had.]
Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Everybody’s Friend, Or; Josh Billing’s Encyclopedia and Proverbial Philosophy of Wit and Humor, ch. 130 “Affurisms: Puddin & Milk” (1874)
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A miser grows rich by seeming poor; an extravagant man grows poor by seeming rich.
William Shenstone (1714-1763) English poet
“Of Men and Manners,” sec. 86, Men and Manners (1804)
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The Prodigal robs his Heir, the Miser himself.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs, #4722 (1732)
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What greater evil could you wish a miser than a long life?
Publilius Syrus (d. 42 BC) Assyrian slave, writer, philosopher [less correctly Publius Syrus]
Sententiae [Moral Sayings], # 69 [tr. Lyman (1862)]
But among the Very Rich you will never find a really generous man even by accident. They may give their money away, but they will never give themselves away; they are egotistic, secretive, dry as old bones. To be smart enough to get all that money you must be dull enough to want it.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) English journalist and writer
A Miscellany of Men, “The Miser and His Friends” (1912)
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In a similar vein, in "The Paradise of Thieves," The Wisdom of Father Brown (1914), Chesterton has the character Muscari say:To be clever enough to get all that money,
one must be stupid enough to want it.
Would yee both eat your cake, and have your cake?
John Heywood (1497?-1580?) English playwright and epigrammist
Proverbes, Part 2, ch. 9 (1546)
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This brother, who is little remembered, was a complacent miser who, being a priest, felt obliged to give alms to the poor he encountered, though he never gave them anything but worthless Revolutionary coins or demonetized sous, thereby contriving to go to hell by following the path to paradise.
[Ce frère, dont il est resté peu de souvenir, était un paisible avare, qui, étant prêtre, se croyait obligé de faire l’aumône aux pauvres qu’il rencontrait, mais il ne leur donnait jamais que des monnerons ou des sous démonétisés, trouvant ainsi moyen d’aller en enfer par le chemin du paradis.]Victor Hugo (1802-1885) French writer
Les Misérables, Part 3 “Marius,” Book 2 “The Grand Bourgeois,” ch. 6 (3.2.6) (1862) [tr. Donougher (2013)]
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(Source (French)). Alternate translations:This brother, of whom hardly a memory is left, was a quiet miser, who, being a priest, felt obliged to give alms to the poor whom he met, but never gave them anything more than coppers or worn-out sous, finding thus the means of going to Hell by the road to Paradise.
[tr. Wilbour (1862); tr. Wilbour / Fahnestock / MacAfee (1987)]This brother, who is not much remembered, was a great miser, who, as he was a priest, thought himself bound to give alms to the poor he met, but he never gave them aught but bad or called-in money, thus finding means of going to Hades by the road to Paradise.
[tr. Wraxall (1862)]This brother, of whom but little memory remains, was a peaceable miser, who, being a priest, thought himself bound to bestow alms on the poor whom he met, but he never gave them anything except bad or demonetized sous, thereby discovering a means of going to hell by way of paradise.
[tr. Hapgood (1887)]The brother, whom he scarcely remembered, had been a peaceable skinflint who, being a priest, felt it his duty to give alms to such of the poor as he encountered; but the coins he gave them were always obsolete currency, and thus he found means of going to Hell by way of Paradise.
[tr. Denny (1976)]
“It is impossible to help all,” says the miser, and — helps none.
[Man kann nicht allen helfen! sagt der Engherzige und — hilft Keinem.]
Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830-1916) Austrian writer
Aphorisms [Aphorismen], No. 105 (1880) [tr. Wister (1883)]
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(Source (German)). Alternate translation:You can't be of help to everybody! say the narrow-minded, and help nobody.
[tr. Scrase/Mieder (1994)]
The miser is as much in want of that which he has, as of that which he has not.
Publilius Syrus (d. 42 BC) Assyrian slave, writer, philosopher [less correctly Publius Syrus]
Sententiae [Moral Sayings]