... it is only after years and years that you can speak of penury in the midst of opulence, of hunger in the midst of almost sinfu...l plenty. You must never speak of the immediate experience unless and until you have learned its consequent value. Otherwise you grow old in bitterness which is barren and futile....LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Painting seems to be to the eye what dancing is to the limbs. When that has educated the frame to self-possession, to nimbleness, ...to grace, the steps of the dancing-master are better forgotten; so painting teaches me the splendor of color and the expression of form, and as I see many pictures and higher genius in the art, I see the boundless opulence of the pencil, the indifferency in which the artist stands free to choose out of the possible forms.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Labour and poverty, so abhorred by every one, are the certain lot of the far greater number: And those few privileged persons, who... enjoy ease and opulence, never reach contentment or true felicity. All the goods of life united would not make a very happy man: But all the ills united would make a wretch indeed; and any one of them almost (and who can be free from every one), nay often the absence of one good (and who can possess all) is sufficient to render life ineligible.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Instead of this we have luxury and avarice; public indigence side by side with private opulence; we glorify wealth and pursue idle...ness; between the worthy and the unworthy we make no distinction; all the prizes of virtue are awarded to ambition.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
With the greater part of rich people, the chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade of riches, which in their eyes is never... so complete as when they appear to possess those decisive marks of opulence which nobody can possess but themselves.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »