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1 " Daughter! Get you an honest Man for a Husband, and keep him honest. No matter whether he is rich, provided he be independent. Regard the Honour and moral Character of the Man more than all other Circumstances. Think of no other Greatness but that of the soul, no other Riches but those of the Heart. An honest, Sensible humane Man, above all the Littlenesses of Vanity, and Extravagances of Imagination, labouring to do good rather than be rich, to be usefull rather than make a show, living in a modest Simplicity clearly within his Means and free from Debts or Obligations, is really the most respectable Man in Society, makes himself and all about him the most happy. "
― John Adams , Letters of John Adams, Addressed to His Wife
2 " Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. I do not seek or conjecture either of them as if they were veiled obscurities or extravagances beyond the horizon of my vision; I see them before me and connect them immediately with the consciousness of my existence. "
― Immanuel Kant , Critique of Practical Reason
3 " in dreams it is often the case that the greatest extravagances seem bereft of their power to astonish and the most improbable chimeras seem commonplace. "
― Cormac McCarthy , Cities of the Plain (The Border Trilogy, #3)
4 " How reprehensible it is when those blessed with commodities insist on ignoring the poor. Better to torment them, force them into indentured servitude, inflict compulsion and blows—this at least produces a connection, fury and a pounding heart, and these too constitute a form of relationship. But to cower in elegant homes behind golden garden gates, fearful lest the breath of warm humankind touch you, unable to indulge in extravagances for fear they might be glimpsed by the embittered oppressed, to oppress and yet lack the courage to show yourself as an oppressor, even to fear the ones you are oppressing, feeling ill at ease in your own wealth and begrudging others their ease, to resort to disagreeable weapons that require neither true audacity nor manly courage, to have money, but only money, without splendor: That’s what things look like in our cities at present "
― Robert Walser , The Tanners
5 " An isolated person requires correspondence as a means of seeing his ideas as others see them, and thus guarding against the dogmatisms and extravagances of solitary and uncorrected speculation. No man can learn to reason and appraise from a mere perusal of the writing of others. If he live not in the world, where he can observe the public at first hand and be directed toward solid reality by the force of conversation and spoken debate, then he must sharpen his discrimination and regulate his perceptive balance by an equivalent exchange of ideas in epistolary form. "
― H.P. Lovecraft
6 " A typical Celestine will devote a large proportion of their time to passing through the inscribed sectors of the planet studying the writings, either alone or accompanied by companions with whom to share comments. This is a favourite pastime among them, and as they travel towards the boundaries of the inscribed regions they can watch the ongoing work of those Celestines that have been chosen to record their ideas – tirelessly twisting, pausing to gather energy, then exerting themselves again; painstakingly working the same patch of dust several thousand times over to shape each individual furrow; to capture, symbol by symbol, the knowledge they have contributed to the Celestine corpus. There is great pride and precision, as well as immense labour, in their toil. Before they commence work, the piece of ground that will house the writing will be chosen very carefully for its aspect. Then, the most favourable angle to the light will be calculated, for the orientation of the wording. The language used is of the most poetic and grandiose sort, quite different from the vernacular, and the symbols themselves are embellished with flourishes, extravagances and curlicues that are unique to the creator. Celestines love to observe this work, which constitutes the pinnacle of their art and of their ceaseless thought-endeavours, and embodies their very reason for being. "
7 " ...I should always find, the calamities of life were shared among the upper and lower part of mankind; but that middle station had the fewest disasters, and was not exposed to so many vicissitudes as the higher or lower part of mankind; nay, they were not subjected to so many distempers and uneasinesses either of body or mind, as those were who, by vicious living, luxury, and extravagances on one hand, or by hard labor, want of necessaries, and mean or insufficient diet on the other hand, bring distempers upon themselves by the natural consequences of their way of living; that the middle station of life was calculated for all kind of virtues and all kind of enjoyments; that peace and plenty were the handmaids of a middle fortune; that temperance, moderation, quietness, health, society, all agreeable diversions, and all desirable pleasures, were the blessings attending the middle station of life... "
― Daniel Defoe , Robinson Crusoe (Robinson Crusoe, #1)
8 " The petty economies of the rich are just as amazing as the silly extravagances of the poor. "
