luxury

The materialistic view of happiness of our age starkly revealed in our understanding of the word "luxury.

Shyness is a luxury reserved for those who are above the poverty line. To a beggar, being shy is deadly.

Lack of luxury is not a reason to push others to poverty. ~ Michael A. van Doorn, Odyssey of a Heart, Home of a Soul

Some people think luxury is the opposite of poverty. It is not. It is the opposite of vulgarity.

I was recently living more comfortably surrounded by secrets... Like dozens of luxurious satiny pillows, they were embracing me from all directions into safe lulling warmth, thus isolating me from the sharp dead-cold edges of the truth hiding behind their endearingly smooth textures and tender soothing colours.Secrets could be so irresistibly beautiful...

Drama does not just walk into our lives. Either we create it, invite it, or associate with it.

When my son speaks of playing sports, I've always told him: playing on the team is great, but aspire to be the guy who owns the team. I've always told my son: most of the guys on the team will end up bankrupt with bum knees, but not the guy who owns that franchise.

It seems to make little sense how a person's self-worth or self-confidence should be wrapped up in how much their jacket is worth or what shoe they are wearing. Does a person's round or pointy-tip shoe really say anything of value about who a person is?It seems that true luxury lies in a freedom from needing that red-bottom shoe, that handbag with all the tiny initials and big price tag, or the latest trend to know that a person truly matters. True luxury seems to lie in the separation of confidence and materialism.Authentic luxury flourishes from the untying of self-worth from popular opinion.

A singer can shatter glass with the proper high note," he said, "but the simplest way to break glass is simply to drop it on the floor.

Abundance isn't God's provision for me to live in luxury. It's his provision for me to help others live. God entrusts me with his money not to build my kingdom on earth, but to build his kingdom in heaven.

It's scented! Your wedding invitations are scented?""It's meant to be lavender.""No, Dex - it's money. It smells of money.

A taste for ostentation is rarely associated in the same souls with a taste for honesty

And yet for aught I see, they are as sick that surfeit with too much as they that starve with nothing. It is no mean happiness, therefore, to be seated in the mean. Superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer.

From the point of view of wealth, there is no difference between need, comfort and pleasure

The idea of luxury, even the word "luxury," was important to Arabella. Luxury meant something that was by definition overpriced, but was so nice, so lovely, in itself that you did not mind, in fact was so lovely that the expensiveness became part of the point, part of the distinction between the people who could not afford a thing and the select few who not only could, but also understood the desirability of paying so much for it. Arabella knew that there were thoughtlessly rich people who could afford everything; she didn't see herself as one of them but instead as one of an elite who both knew what money meant and could afford the things they wanted; and the knowledge of what money meant gave the drama of high prices a special piquancy. She loved expensive things because she knew what their expensiveness meant. She had a complete understanding of the signifiers.

Most of us have no sympathy with the rich idler who spends his life in pleasure without ever doing any work. But even he fulfills a function in the life of the social organism. He sets an example of luxury that awakens in the multitude a consciousness of new needs and gives industry the incentive to fulfill them.

...luxury is the enemy of observation, a costly indulgence that induces such a good feeling that you notice nothing. Luxury spoils and infantilizes you and prevents you from knowing the world. That is its purpose...

When you stop living for luxuries you understand the real meaning of life.