C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Economy
Economy is a savings-bank, into which men drop pennies, and get dollars in return.
Economy is a great revenue.
Economy, the poor man’s mint.
Ere fancy you consult, consult your purse.
A creative economy is the fuel of magnificence.
Let heaven-eyed Prudence battle with Desire.
The back door robs the house.
To make three guineas do the work of five.
Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship.
Economy is half the battle of life; it is not so hard to earn money as to spend it well.
It would be well had we more misers than we have among us.
There can be no economy where there is no efficiency.
If you know how to spend less than you get you have the philosopher’s stone.
The injury of prodigality leads to this, that he who will not economize will have to agonize.
Where there is a question of economy, I prefer privation.
Not to be covetous is money, not to be a purchaser is a revenue.
Take care to be an economist in prosperity; there is no fear of your being one in adversity.
Economy is an excellent lure to betray people into expense.
Frugality is founded on the principle that all riches have limits.
There is no gain so certain as that which arises from sparing what you have.
Be saving, but not at the cost of all liberality. Have the soul of a king and the hand of a wise economist.
There are but two ways of paying debt: increase of industry in raising income, increase of thrift in laying out.
No man is rich whose expenditure exceeds his means; and no one is poor whose incomings exceed his outgoings.
I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse; borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable.
The man who will live above his present circumstances is in great danger of living, in a little, much beneath them.
As much wisdom may be expended on a private economy as on an empire, and as much wisdom may be drawn from it.
Men live best upon small means. Nature has provided for all, if they only knew how to use her gifts.
The world abhors closeness, and all but admires extravagance; yet a slack hand shows weakness, a tight hand strength.
He that, when he should not, spends too much, shall, when he would not, have too little to spend.
Economy is the parent of integrity, of liberty, and of ease, and the beauteous sister of temperance, of cheerfulness and health.
A man may, if he knows not how to save as he gets, keep his nose all his life to the grindstone and die not worth a groat at last.
I knew once a very covetous, sordid fellow, who used to say, Take care of the pence; for the pounds will take care of themselves.
The regard one shows economy is like that we show an old aunt who is to leave us something at last.
With parsimony a little is sufficient; and without it nothing is sufficient; whereas frugality makes a poor man rich.
He who is taught to live upon little owes more to his father’s wisdom than he that has a great deal left him does to his father’s care.
Sense can support herself handsomely in most countries on some eighteen pence a day; but for fantasy, planets and solar systems, will not suffice.
Certainly, if a man will but keep of an even hand, his ordinary expenses ought to be but to the half of his receipts; and if he thinks to wax rich, but to the third part.
The prospect of penury in age is so gloomy and terrifying that every man who looks before him must resolve to avoid it; and it must be avoided generally by the science of sparing.
Proportion and propriety are among the best secrets of domestic wisdom; and there is no surer test of integrity than a well-proportioned expenditure.
Gain may be temporary and uncertain; but ever while you live expense is constant and certain; and it is easier to build two chimneys than to keep one in fuel.
Qualities not regulated run into their opposites. Economy before competence is meanness after it. Therefore economy is for the poor; the rich may dispense with it.
Nature is avariciously frugal; in matter it allows no atom to elude its grasp; in mind, no thought or feeling to perish. It gathers up the fragments that nothing be lost.
Let us learn the meaning of economy. Economy is a high human office,—a sacrament when its aim is grand, when it is the prudence of simple tastes, when it is practised for freedom or for love or devotion.
As boys should be educated with temperance, so the first greatest lesson that should be taught them is to admire frugality. It is by the exercise of this virtue alone they can ever expect to be useful members of society.
The man who will live above his present circumstances is in great danger of living in a little time much beneath them, or, as the Italian proverb says: “The man who lives by hope will die by despair.”
Economy is integrity and profuseness is a cruel and crafty demon, that gradually involves her followers in dependence and debts; that is, fetters them with irons that enter into their souls.
Men talk in raptures of youth and beauty, wit and sprightliness; but after seven years of union not one of them is to be compared to good family management, which is seen at every meal, and felt every hour in the husband’s purse.
Sound economy is a sound understanding brought into action; it is calculation realized; it is the doctrine of proportion reduced to practice; it is foreseeing contingencies, and providing against them.
Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy. If parsimony were to be considered as one of the kinds of that virtue, there is, however, another and a higher economy. Economy is a distinctive virtue, and consists not in saving, but in selection.
All to whom want is terrible, upon whatever principle, ought to think themselves obliged to learn the sage maxims of our parsimonious ancestors, and attain the salutary arts of contracting expense; for without economy none can be rich, and with it few can be poor.
It is no small commendation to manage a little well. He is a good waggoner that can turn in a little room. To live well in abundance is the praise to the estate, is the praise not of the person. I will study more how to give a good account of my little, than how to make it more.
He regarded nothing to be cheap that was superfluous, for what one does not need is dear at a penny; and it was better to possess fields, where the plough goes and cattle feed, than fine gardens that require much watering and sweeping.
Let honesty and industry be thy constant companions and spend one penny less than thy clear gains; then shall thy hide-bound pocket soon begin to thrive and will never again cry with the empty belly-ache; neither will creditors insult thee, nor want oppress, nor hunger bite, nor nakedness freeze thee.
The mere power of saving what is already in our hands must be of easy acquisition to every mind; and as the example of Lord Bacon may show that the highest intellect cannot safely neglect it, a thousand instances every day prove that the humblest may practise it with success.
Those individuals who save money are better workmen; if they do not the work better, they behave better and are more respectable; and I would sooner have in my trade a hundred men who save money than two hundred who would spend every shilling they get. In proportion as individuals save a little money their morals are much better; they husband that little, and there is a superior tone given to their morals, and they behave better for knowing that they have a little stake in society.