Perspectives; on Extravagance

[CelticWarlord]

The title says it all.

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“The whole point of extravagance is to act like a fool and feel like a fool, but enjoy it.”

• 
  
• Alfred Bester

“Her purchases just about busted her vacation budget, but what else is a vacation for, if not for overindulgence and mindless extravagance?”

• 
  
• Candace Schuler

“Most people are resistant to ideas, especially new ones. But they are
fascinated by character. Extravagance of personality is one way in which
the pill can be sugared and the public induced to look at works dealing
with ideas.”

• 
  
• Paul Johnson

"…And buy yourself a bottle of wine, or make a few cocktails, or have a long open-hearted discussion on cheese with the man on the corner who is a stranger but still loyal even if bewildered.”

-M.F.K. Fisher

“The Stoic philosopher and playwright Seneca is said to have owned five hundred tripod tables with ivory legs—no small irony, since he was a vocal critic of the empire’s extravagances.”

• 
  
• William J. Bernstein

“Poverty is apt to strike suddenly like influenza, it is well to have a few memories of extravagance in store for bad times.”

• 
  
• Graham Greene

“I like to live extravagantly in my mind, she said, but in real life I keep to the edges because I bruise easily."
-Brian Andreas

 

[Procla]

Interesting perspective, since ‘extravagance’ means something a bit different to everyone. I can especially relate to the last two quotes. Like in the Brian Aldiss quote, I generally ‘keep to the edges’ though under present difficult circumstances, I feel I’ve given into to a bit of extravagance, or at least my idea of it. I suppose buying a bottle of not the most expensive sherry wouldn’t seem a big deal to some, but it has become one of my sort-of guilty indulgences. My biggest extravagance lately, though, has been buying books from Amazon. Though again they are not that expensive, it seems extravagant to me because I would normally order these books from the library, but the libraries are still closed so I have the excuse. My husband has got me using his old kindle, something else I never thought I’d take to. He is the technology-minded one and has an amazon account, so with a few flicks of his finger yet another book pops up on my screen … delicious!