Miser Quotes

To be a book-collector is to combine the worst characteristics of a dope fiend with those of a miser. (Robertson Davies)
It is better to lose health like a spendthrift than to waste it like a miser. It is better to live and be done with it, than to die daily in the sick-room. View quote
Robert Louis Stevenson
The miser deprives himself of his treasure because of his desire for it. View quote
Simone Weil
The irrational in the human has something about it altogether repulsive and terrible, as we see in the maniac, the miser, the drunkard or the ape. View quote
George Santayana
I am a miser of my memories of you. View quote
Witter Bynner
A miser grows rich by seeming poor; an extravagant man grows poor by seeming rich. View quote
William Shenstone
In my opinion, every rich man is a miser. View quote
Michel de Montaigne
Experiences are savings which a miser puts aside. Wisdom is an inheritance which a wastrel cannot exhaust. View quote
Karl Kraus
There is in even the most selfish passion a large element of self-abnegation. It is startling to realize that what we call extreme self-seeking is actually self-renunciation. The miser, health addict, glory chaser and their like are not far behind the selfless in the exercise of self-sacrifice. View quote
Eric Hoffer
In this consists the difference between the character of a miser and that of a person of exact economy and assiduity. The one is anxious about small matters for their own sake; the other attends to them only in consequence of the scheme of life which he has laid down to himself. View quote
Adam Smith
After all, people judge one another according to their own feelings. It is only the miser who sees other enticed by money, the lustful who see others obsessed by desire. (Irene Nemirovsky)
The legend of King Midas has been generally misunderstood. Most people think the curse that turned everything the old miser touched into gold, leaving him unable to eat or drink, was a lesson in the perils of avarice. But Midas's true sin was his failure to understand monetary economics. What the gods were really telling him is that gold is just a metal. If it sometimes seems to be more, that is only because society has found it convenient to use gold as a medium of exchange-a bridge between other, truly desirable, objects. There are other possible mediums of exchange, and it is silly to imagine that this pretty, but only moderately useful, substance has some irreplaceable significance. View quote
Paul Krugman
You don't love yourself enough. Or you'd love your nature too, and what it demands of you. People who love what they do wear themselves down doing it, they even forget to wash or eat. Do you have less respect for your own nature than the engraver does for engraving, the dancer for the dance, the miser for money or the social climber for status? When they're really possessed by what they do, they'd rather stop eating and sleeping than give up practicing their arts. Is helping others less valuable to you? Not worth your effort? View quote
Marcus Aurelius
It is better to lose health like a spendthrift than to waste it like a miser. View quote
Robert Louis Stevenson
Nurse one vice in your bosom. Give it the attention it deserves and let your virtues spring up modestly around it. Then you'll have the miser who's no liar; and the drunkard who's the benefactor of the whole city. View quote
Thornton Wilder
If people were told: what makes carnal desire imperious in you is not its pure carnal element. It is the fact that you put into it the essential part of yourself-the need for Unity, the need for God - they wouldn't believe it. To them it seems obvious that the quality of imperious need belongs to the carnal desire as such. In the same way it seems obvious to the miser that the quality of desirability belongs to gold as such, and not to its exchange value. View quote
Simone Weil
But here I stop-short of any deterministic speculation that attributes specific behaviors to the possession of specific altruist or opportunist genes. Our genetic makeup permits a wide range of behaviors-from Ebenezer Scrooge before to Ebenezer Scrooge after. I do not believe that the miser hoards through opportunist genes or that the philanthropist gives because nature endowed him with more than the normal complement of altruist genes. Upbringing, culture, class, status, and all the intangibles that we call "free will,” determine how we restrict our behaviors from the wide spectrum-extreme altruism to extreme selfishness-that our genes permit. View quote
Stephen Jay Gould
Oh, I wish I were a miser; being a miser must be so occupying. View quote
Gertrude Stein
Go miser go, for money sell your soul. Trade wares for wares and trudge from pole to pole, So others may say when you are dead and gone. See what a vast estate he left his son. View quote
John Dryden
My mother taught me a Spanish saying,” he remarked, "that it takes four men to make a salad: a spendthrift for the oil, a philosopher for the seasonings, a miser for the vinegar, and a madman for the tossing. View quote
Poul Anderson
Never was a miser a brave soul. (George Herbert)
In my servant the ant, my tiny servant, who hoards greedily like a miser. Who works like one unhappy and who has no break and who has no rest. View quote
Charles Péguy
Referring to a wealthy miser he said, "He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him." View quote
Bion of Borysthenes
The miser is as much in want of what he has as of what he has not. View quote
Publilius Syrus
I will not cede more power to the state. I will not willingly cede more power to anyone, not to the state, not to General Motors, not to the CIO. I will hoard my power like a miser, resisting every effort to drain it away from me. I will then use my power, as I see fit. I mean to live my life an obedient man, but obedient to God, subservient to the wisdom of my ancestors never to the authority of political truths arived at yesterday at the voting booth. That is a program of sorts, is it not It is certainly program enough to keep conservatives busy, and Liberals at bay. And the nation free. View quote
William F. Buckley