Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Luxury
Blesses his stars, and thinks it luxury.
Addison—Cato. Act I. Sc. 4.
To treat a poor wretch with a bottle of Burgundy, and fill his snuff-box, is like giving a pair of laced ruffles to a man that has never a shirt on his back.
Tom Brown—Laconics.
Sofas ’twas half a sin to sit upon,
So costly were they; carpets, every stitch
Of workmanship so rare, they make you wish
You could glide o’er them like a golden fish.
Byron—Don Juan. Canto V. St. 65.
Blest hour! It was a luxury—to be!
Coleridge—Reflections on having left a Place of Retirement. L. 43.
O Luxury! thou curst by Heaven’s decree.
Goldsmith—Deserted Village. L. 385.
Such dainties to them, their health it might hurt:
It’s like sending them ruffles, when wanting a shirt.
Goldsmith—Haunch of Venison.
Then there is that glorious Epicurean paradox, uttered by my friend, the Historian in one of his flashing moments: “Give us the luxuries of life, and we will dispense with its necessaries.”
Holmes—Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. VI.
Fell luxury! more perilous to youth
Than storms or quicksands, poverty or chains.
Hannah More—Belshazzar.
Luxury and dissipation, soft and gentle as their approaches are, and silently as they throw their silken chains about the heart, enslave it more than the most active and turbulent vices.
Hannah More—Essays. Dissipation.
On his weary couch
Fat Luxury, sick of the night’s debauch,
Lay groaning, fretful at the obtrusive beam
That through his lattice peeped derisively.
Pollok—Course of Time. Bk. VII. L. 69.
Luxury is an enticing pleasure, a bastard mirth, which hath honey in her mouth, gall in her heart, and a sting in her tail.
Quarles—Emblems. Bk. I. Hugo.
Rings put upon his fingers,
A most delicious banquet by his bed,
And brave attendants near him when he wakes,
Would not the beggar then forget himself?
Taming of the Shrew. Induction. Sc. 1. L. 38.
Like sending them ruffles, when wanting a shirt.
Sorbienne.
Falsely luxurious, will not man awake?
Thomson—The Seasons. Summer. L. 67.