The greatest luxury of riches is, that they enable you to escape so much good advice.
—Arthur Helps (1813–75) English Dramatist, Essayist
I love luxury. And luxury lies not in richness and ornateness but in the absence of vulgarity. Vulgarity is the ugliest word in our language. I stay in the game to fight it.
—Coco Chanel (1883–1971) French Fashion Designer
Pain adds rest unto pleasure, and teaches the luxury of health.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper (1810–89) English Poet, Writer
But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself. The mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial that mars our lives. We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind and poisons us. The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure, or the luxury of a regret. The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that the great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
By luxury we condemn ourselves to greater torments than have yet been invented by anger or revenge, or inflicted by the greatest tyrants upon the orst of men.
—William Temple (1881–1944) British Clergyman, Theologian
Truly, one gets easier accustomed to a silken bed than to a sack of leaves.
—Berthold Auerbach (1812-82) German Novelist
Such dainties to them, their health it might hurt: It’s like sending them ruffles, when wanting a shirt.
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730–74) Irish Novelist, Playwright, Poet
Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.
—G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English Journalist, Novelist, Essayist, Poet
Poverty wants some things, Luxury many things, Avarice all things.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
Luxury must be comfortable, otherwise it is not luxury.
—Coco Chanel (1883–1971) French Fashion Designer
Living in the lap of luxury isn’t bad, except that you never know when luxury is going to stand up.
—Orson Welles (1915–85) American Film Director, Actor
Luxury, that alluring pest with fair forehead, which, yielding always to the will of the body, throws a deadening influence over the senses, and weakens the limbs more than the drugs of Circe’s cup.
—Claudian (c.370–c.404 CE) Roman Poet
Anger is an expensive luxury in which only men of a certain income can indulge.
—George William Curtis (1824–92) American Essayist, Public Speaker, Editor, Author
He repents on thorns that sleeps in beds of roses.
—Francis Quarles (1592–1644) English Religious Poet
We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about.
—Charles Kingsley (1819–75) English Clergyman, Academic, Historian, Novelist
It was luxuries like air conditioning that brought down the Roman Empire. With air conditioning their windows were shut, they couldn’t hear the barbarians coming.
—Garrison Keillor (b.1942) American Author, Humorist, Radio Personality