Quotes & Sayings About Austerity

You who love wild passions, flee the holy austerity of my pleasures. All here breathes of God, peace and truth. — Jean Racine

The real pleasure-seeking is the combination of luxury and austerity in such a way that the luxury can really be felt. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Our patron has always sort of danced upon the notion that austerity and piety go hand in hand; down here, we show our appreciation for things by appreciating, if you get me. — Scott Lynch

Falling in love, making love, having baby, if all sprinkled with the love, you will know how to be a man; how give love and how to receive it." Taham said. "You learn the rules of love so you can love people, love yourself and reach the true love without austerity."
from "Goddess of Passion", book one — F.J. Namini

What are these so-called austerity measures? What do they really bring? Oh, they bring a lot more poverty. Oh, they bring a worse GDP. Oh, they bring more unemployment. — Gerald Celente

People are increasingly frustrated that decisions taken further and further away from them mean their living standards are slashed through enforced austerity or their taxes are used to bail out governments on the other side of the continent. — David Cameron

With the exception of very few who have gained higher spiritual tendencies in prior lives, Self-realization is not possible for anyone without the blessings of a guru. Think of the guru as the manifestation of God in this world. Take even the most insignificant word of the guru as an order and obey it. That is the real service to the guru. There is no greater austerity. The guru's blessings flow automatically to any obedient disciple. That is the real service to the guru. — Mata Amritanandamayi

A duel, whether regarded as a ceremony in the cult of honour, or even when reduced in its moral essence to a form of manly sport, demands a perfect singleness of intention, a homicidal austerity of mood. [The duel] — Joseph Conrad

Austerity is not part of the European treaties; democracy and the principle of popular sovereignty are. — Alexis Tsipras

Our civilization has fallen out of touch with night. With lights, we drive the holiness and beauty of night back to the forests and the sea; the little villages, the crossroads even, will have none of it. Are modern folk, perhaps, afraid of night? Do they fear that vast serenity, the mystery of infinite space, the austerity of stars? — Henry Beston

A beautiful deleveraging balances the three options. In other words, there is a certain amount of austerity, there is a certain amount of debt restructuring, and there is a certain amount of printing of money. When done in the right mix, it isn't dramatic. — Ray Dalio

I love a gay and sociable wisdom, and shun harshness and austerity in behaviour, holding every surly countenance suspect. — Michel De Montaigne

That programme [Supremacy of Capital] has condemned the peoples of the majority world to mass poverty, and now threatens to do the same to those living in the core capitalist economies as they slide towards permanent austerity and social disintegration. The power granted to capital comes at a price, and as the next chapter demonstrates, that price is democracy itself. — John Hilary

What you call austerity is what I might call efficiency. — David Cameron

Everything is human. The Spaniard's fear of God, his humility, his solemnity, his scrupulous austerity is a very worthy form of humanity, — Thomas Mann

Pope Francis has stressed humility and austerity - a far cry, according to many, from the predecessor's bling and Ferragamo shoes - those were pretty entertaining. And he's translating all of that into a policy agenda. — Ronan Farrow

The earth doesn't belong to anyone. It is the land upon which all of us are to live for many years, ploughing, reaping and destroying. You are always a guest on this earth and have the austerity of a guest. Austerity is far deeper than owning only a few things. The very word austerity has been spoilt by the monks, by the sannyasis, by the hermits. Sitting on that high hill alone in the solitude of many things, many rocks and little animals and ants, that word has no meaning. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

Deficits must be cut, yes, but the rush to austerity risks undermining the fragile global recovery. — Alistair Darling

Never has a strong, responsible trade union movement been so needed. With austerity policies biting hard and with no evidence that they are working, people at work need the TUC to speak up for them now more than ever. — Frances O'Grady

The 'Islamic State', that strange miscegenation of Medina with Westphalia, is always in mortal danger of linking the moral austerity of monotheism with the repressive and supervisor powers of the modern nation state. — Abdal Hakim Murad

The world has conducted a massive macro-economic experiment since the cataclysm of 2008. In Europe, the fans of austerity have had their chance, and the results have been a disaster. — Eliot Spitzer

Austerity is devastating these communities. The working poor, public sector workers, the disabled, and the vulnerable are the hardest hit by this bankrupt and ideologically driven policy. — Martin McGuinness

The boom, not the slump, is the right time for austerity at the Treasury. — John Maynard Keynes

Austerity need not be Europe's fate. — Francois Hollande

The typical Anarchist, then, may be defined as follows: A man perceptible by the spirit of revolt under one or more of its forms, - opposition, investigation, criticism, innovation, - endowed with a strong love of liberty, egoistic or individualistic, and possessed of great curiosity, a keen desire to know. These traits are supplemented by an ardent love of others, a highly developed moral sensitiveness, a profound sentiment of justice, and imbued with missionary zeal." To the above characteristics, says Alvin F. Sanborn, must be added these sterling qualities: a rare love of animals, surpassing sweetness in all the ordinary relations of life, exceptional sobriety of demeanor, frugality and regularity, austerity, even, of living, and courage beyond compare.[2] — Emma Goldman

Italians have always had a high savings rate. They love putting their money into their own government bonds - even more than in houses, stocks and gold. The higher rates climb, the happier they are to invest. So if austerity plans drive rates up, it's music to Italian ears. — Kenneth Fisher

We are witnessing the death of abundance and the borning of austerity, for what may be a long, long time. — Bill Gross

I'm always trying to get to a danger point in color, where color either becomes too sweet or it becomes too harsh, it becomes too noisy or too quiet, and at that point I still want the picture to be strong, forceful, and the carrier of everything that a painting has to have: contrast, drama, austerity. — Wolf Kahn

In truth you cannot understand the nature of My Reality, either today, or even after a thousand years of steady austerity or ardent inquiry, even if all mankind joins in that effort. — Sathya Sai Baba

As I came down from the mountain, I recalled how, not many years ago, it was access to information and movement that seemed our greatest luxury; nowadays it's often freedom from information, the chance to sit still, that feels like the ultimate prize. Stillness is not just an indulgence for those with enough resources - it's a necessity for anyone who wishes to gather less visible resources. Going nowhere, as Cohen had shown me, is not about austerity so much as about coming closer to one's senses. I — Pico Iyer

Weak banks endangered sovereigns that were called upon to save them, and weak sovereigns endangered banks holding bonds at risk of default. Recession worsened the debt ratio, but austerity to reduce borrowing suppressed growth, or caused even worse recession. — John Peet

A lot of people measure a man by what he's got. I've decided to measure myself by what I can give up. — Geoff Nicholson

You can be creative only when there is abandonment-which means, really, there is no sense of compulsion, no fear of not being, of not gaining, of not arriving. Then there is great austerity, simplicity, and with it there is love. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

When the stories were over, four or five of us walked out the home of our host. The surrounding land, in the persistent light of a far northern summer, was still visible for miles
striated, pitched massifs of the Brooks Range; the shy, willow-lined banks of the John River flowing south from Anaktuvuk Pass; and the flat tundra plain, opening with great affirmation to the north. The landscape seemed alive because of the stories. It was precisely these ocherous tones, the kind of willow, exactly this austerity that had informed the wolverine narratives. I felt exhilaration, and a deeper confirmation of what I had heard. The mundane task that awaited me I anticipated now with pleasure. The stories had renewed in me a sense of the purpose of my life. — Barry Lopez

But the fact that we had to devalue by 40% at once means that Malawians are feeling the shock, the impact of that huge devaluation and particularly rural people, the poor are the ones that are going to be most affected. That is why there is the austerity plan. — Joyce Banda

Our problem in the 2015 general election was that for all the good stuff that was in the Labour manifesto, we were still going to be freezing public sector wages, cutting council expenditure, laying off civil servants. We were offering 'austerity light' instead of a real alternative. — Jeremy Corbyn

In the large sense, I have to disagree with Bakunin, one thing austerity rhetoric has suggested is that when the people are being beaten with a stick, they are much happier if the media call it the People's Democratic Stick. — Bruno De Oliveira

Hardship bred a bitter, quickfire humour and resilience to all but the most terminal of life's tragedies. — Ian Rankin

Remember, the political idea being expressed a year ago was that because the GOP interpreted its 1994 mandate as a call to budget-balancing austerity, the electorate would never give the White House to the GOP if its nominee was also a root-canal austerian. — Jude Wanniski

It was my good fortune to be linked with Mme. Curie through twenty years of sublime and unclouded friendship. I came to admire her human grandeur to an ever growing degree. Her strength, her purity of will, her austerity toward herself, her objectivity, her incorruptible judgement - all these were of a kind seldom found joined in a single individual ... The greatest scientific deed of her life - proving the existence of radioactive elements and isolating them - owes its accomplishment not merely to bold intuition but to a devotion and tenacity in execution under the most extreme hardships imaginable, such as the history of experimental science has not often witnessed. — Albert Einstein

Launching an innovative premium jelly bouillon into a highly competitive market at the height of austerity, for example, might not have been thought the wisest move. Yet with people eating out less, the demand for high-quality convenience products that enable people to cook at home has grown. As — Jaideep Prabhu, Paul Polman, The Economist Navi Radjou

The flaw in, say, austerity, is that its success is predicated on the relative exactitude of math rather than the shifting, liquid imperfection of people's lives. — Steven Weber

Indebted countries can only grow out of their debt troubles through strong economic growth; austerity measures alone cannot work. It is imperative to engage in deep structural reform to spur growth. — Lou Jiwei

When malice has reason on its side, it looks forth bravely, and displays that reason in all its luster. When austerity and self-denial have not realized true happiness, and the soul returns to the dictates of nature, the reaction is fearfully extravagant. — Blaise Pascal

The task ahead of us will be extremely challenging as the Tory party continue with their austerity agenda and as we continue to resolve the issues of the past and build unity, reconciliation, and equality. — Martin McGuinness

They rode on. The horses trudged sullenly the alien ground and the round earth rolled beneath them silently milling the greater void wherein they were contained. In the neuter austerity of that terrain all phenomena were bequeathed a strange equality and no one thing nor spider nor stone nor blade of grass could put forth claim to precedence. The very clarity of these articles belied their familiarity, for the eye predicates the whole on some feature or part and here was nothing more luminous than another and nothing more enshadowed and in the optical democracy of such landscapes all preference is made whimsical and a man and a rock become endowed with unguessed kinships. — Cormac McCarthy

Let our lives be firmly rooted in Truth. Abstain from lies. In this dark age of materialism, adherence to truth is the greatest austerity. We might have to tell lies now and then to protect somebody or to sustain dharma, but we must be careful not to speak lies for our own selfish purposes. — Mata Amritanandamayi

Labour has the responsibility to give a lead where the government will not. We need to bring people together, hold the government to account, oppose austerity and set out a path to exit that will protect jobs and incomes. — Jeremy Corbyn

It is through the tender austerity of our troubles that the Son of Man comes knocking. In every event He seeks an entrance to my heart, yes, even in my most helpless, futile, fruitless moments. The very cracks and empty crannies of my life, my perplexities and hurts and botched-up jobs, He wants to fill with Himself, His joy, His life ... He urges me to learn of Him: 'I am gentle and humble in heart. — Elisabeth Elliot

And what if we'd been utterly open? Made jokes about the first wife? What if we'd been that kind of family? Well, I would have been different, surely. But not because I knew the secret. For it wasn't the secret - the secret that wasn't a secret anyway - that led to the austerity in our lives. It was the austerity that led to the secret. And what I had been marked by, probably most of all, was the austerity. It had made secrets in my life too. Or silences, anyway, that became secrets. That became lies. — Sue Miller

Conservatives are also against unions and want to legislate them out of existence via what are called "right to work" laws. Such laws see employment through a Strict Father lens: as simply a matter of individual responsibility by the employee. Conservative enmity against unions follows from the moral hierarchy: Rich Over Poor; Employer Over Employee. Unions are actually agents of freedom - freedom from corporate servitude and wage slavery. Without unions, employees have to individually take what is offered, usually far less than they would get with a union: not just pay but worker safety, health care benefits, pensions, reasonable working conditions and hours, reasonable vacation time. What is "reasonable"? What the union members can negotiate. Unions create freedom. Austerity — George Lakoff

Instead of an end to austerity, Labour has made clear that it wants to impose more austerity cuts. — Nicola Sturgeon

The consumption of petroleum should be conserved. We need to adopt some austerity measures. The people should cooperate with us. — Veerappa Moily

I have dealt with a pretty interesting mix of young people, many of whom have never been involved in any form of politics at any level who are interested in alternatives to austerity and debt, and older people who left the Labour party, mainly over Iraq, who are coming back in. — Jeremy Corbyn

Democracies can't handle austerity measures very well. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Know that the eradication of the identification with the body is charity, spiritual austerity and ritual sacrifice; it is virtue, divine union and devotion; it is heaven, wealth, peace and truth; it is grace; it is the state of divine silence; it is the deathless death; it is jnana, renunciation, final liberation and bliss. — Ramana Maharshi

As the United States continues its slow but steady recovery from the depths of the financial crisis, nobody actually wants a massive austerity package to shock the economy back into recession, and so the odds have always been high that the game of budgetary chicken will stop short of disaster. Looming past the cliff, however, is a deep chasm that poses a much greater challenge
the retooling of the country's economy, society, and government necessary for the United States to perform effectively in the twenty-first century. — Fareed Zakaria

His architecture was butch. But in its muscular austerity, free of domesticating bric-a-brac, a hyper masculine form of drag could also be discerned. His occasional incorporation of vintage porthole windows, stained glass, and Palladian transoms offered a wry, backward glance at all the new generation was leaving behind. — Christopher Bascom Rawlins

If the Labour manifesto is a pale shade of austerity, then I believe Labour will be defeated at the next election — Len McCluskey

The Empire was not known for its roomy architecture. It was fond of austere pragmatism (that term, austere pragmatism, or sometimes pragmatic austerity, found its way atop many Imperial brochures and propaganda tracts), and so kept its hallways low and narrow. — Chuck Wendig

Joyce for all his devotion to his art, terrible in its austerity, was a lad born with a song on one side of him, a dance on the other; two gay guardian angels every human ought to have. — Sean O'Casey

Past experience with fiscal austerity at home and overseas strongly suggests that it is best for the economy's long-run performance to restrain government spending rather than raise taxes. — Mark Zandi

I grew up in austerity in the 1940s and 1950s. — David Hockney

[T]he next time you hear serious-sounding people explaining the need for fiscal austerity, try to parse their argument. Almost surely, you'll discover that what sounds like hardheaded realism actually rests on a foundation of fantasy, on the belief that invisible vigilantes will punish us if we're bad and the confidence fairy will reward us if we're good. And real-world policy - policy that will blight the lives of millions of working families - is being built on that foundation. — Paul Krugman

Has the body a soul? No. The soul has a body. And well does that soul know when this body has served its purpose, and well does that soul do to lay it aside in high austerity, taking it off like a stained garment. — Megory Anderson

The kiss he gave her was fierce and passionate, relaying so much more than lust and desire. She clung to him, soaking up the flood of emotion from a man known for his reserve and austerity. This was why she could blossom for him, why she felt fearless and audacious. They were so much alike in that way, their still waters running deeper than most. — Sylvia Day

At very best there are two problems with ideology. The first is that it does not represent or conform to or even address reality. It is a straight-edge ruler of a fractal universe. And the second is that it inspires in its believers the notion that the fault here lies with miscreant fact, which should therefore be conformed to the requirements of theory by all means necessary. To the ideologue this would amount to putting the world right, ridding it of ambiguity and of those tedious and endless moral and ethical questions that dog us through life, and that those around us so rarely answer to our satisfaction. — Marilynne Robinson

The very austerity of the Brahmans is tempting to the devotional soul, as a more refined and nobler luxury. Wants so easily and gracefully satisfied seem like a more refined pleasure. Their conception of creation is peaceful as a dream. — Henry David Thoreau

Having done a Dogme film taught me the beauty of simplicity and austerity. — Susanne Bier

There was the honour and austerity of money as he walked through art galleries, as he saw around him the collections of oil paintings by dead men, lit so carefully that warmth seemed to emanate from within - and not because their art was loved or understood but because it could be sold and bought for handsome sums. — Lydia Millet

Even in a time of fiscal austerity, education is more than just an expense. — Arne Duncan

To me there is an intimate relationship between austerity and more lush aesthetics. They're two faces of the same coin. — Sally Potter

In general, the deployment of austerity as economic policy has been as effective in bringing us peace, prosperity, and crucially, a sustained reduction of debt, as the Mongol Golden Horde was in furthering the development of Olympic dressage. — Mark Blyth

Sinn Fein will not do Tory austerity. — Martin McGuinness

Damned Beaver/Jeremy is the War, he is every assertion the fucking War has ever made
that we are meant for work and government, for austerity: and these shall take priority over love, dreams, the spirit, the senses and the other second-class trivia that are found among the idle and mindless hours of the day ... Damn them, they are wrong. They are insane. — Thomas Pynchon

The US and Europe are committing suicide in different ways. In Europe it's austerity in the midst of recession and that's guaranteed to be a disaster. There's some resistance to that now. In the US, it's essentially off-shoring production and financialization and getting rid of superfluous population through incarceration. — Noam Chomsky

Part of what academics do is generate ideas and teach. The other, perhaps more important part, is to play the role of "the Bu*l*hit Police." Our job is to look at the ideas and plans interested parties put forward to solve our collective problems and see whether or not they pass the sniff test. Austerity as a route to growth and as the correct response to the aftermath of a financial crisis does not pass the sniff test. — Mark Blyth

The moment a large investor doesn't believe a government will pay back its debt when it says it will, a crisis of confidence could develop. Investors have scant patience for the years of good governance - politically fraught fiscal restructuring, austerity and debt rescheduling - it takes to defuse a sovereign-debt crisis. — Andrew Ross Sorkin

We should not feel pride in our charity, austerity, valour, scriptural knowledge, modestyandmorality for the world is full of the rarest gems. — Chanakya

This government and the party that I lead will continue to argue an alternative to the Tory-Labour austerity. — Nicola Sturgeon

CPUs. Cayce Pollard Units. That's what Damien calls the clothing she wears. CPUs are either black, white, or gray, and ideally seem to have come into this world without human intervention.
What people take for relentless minimalism is a side effect of too much exposure to the reactor-cores of fashion. This has resulted in a remorseless paring-down of what she can and will wear. She is, literally, allergic to fashion. She can only tolerate things that could have been worn, to a general lack of comment, during any year between 1945 and 2000. She's a design-free zone, a one-woman school of anti whose very austerity periodically threatens to spawn its own cult. — William Gibson

Nor have I any idea why Said should consider Orwell's life a 'comfortable' one. Having taken a bullet through the throat, and while suffering from a demoralising and ultimately lethal case of TB, he lived on an astonishingly low budget and tried whenever possible to grow his own food and even to make his own furniture. Indeed, if there was anything affected about him, it might be his indifference to bourgeois life, his almost ostentatious austerity. — Christopher Hitchens

Americans have always been able to handle austerity and even adversity. Prosperity is what is doing us in. — James Reston

Austerity policy without currency devaluation can only hamper economic growth. — Lou Jiwei

Sitting in the flickering light of the candles on this kerchief of sand, on this village square, we waited in the night. We were waiting for the rescuing dawn - or for the Moors. Something, I know not what, lent this night a savor of Christmas. We told stories, we joked, we sang songs. In the air there was that slight fever that reigns over a gaily prepared feast. And yet we were infinitely poor. Wind, sand, and stars. The austerity of Trappists. But on this badly lighted cloth, a handful of men who possessed nothing in the world but their memories were sharing invisible riches. — Antoine De Saint-Exupery

Chinese commentaries stress the opportunity that the investments and aid they offer presents to developing countries to avoid the hazards of reliance on Western dominated financial institutions: austerity programs that call for severe cuts in state-subsidized social welfare, deregulation of state-owned facilities, trade liberalization, and an open door for multinational corporation investment. — Melvin Gurtov

For beauty there must be austerity and a total abandonment, and there cannot be abandonment if there is any sense of ambition expressing itself as an achievement. When there is austerity, there is simplicity, and only the mind that is simple can abandon itself, and out of this abandonment comes love. Such a state is beauty. But of that we are totally unaware. Our civilization, our culture, is based on arrogance, on the sense of achievement, and in society we are at each other's throats, violently competing to achieve, to acquire, to dominate, to become somebody. These are obvious psychological facts. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

The excess of the voluptuary, like the austerities of the recluse, triumphs in the suffrage of perverted reason. — Samuel Parr

In the face of postwar austerity, hundreds of brides-to-be across the country sent Princess Elizabeth their clothing coupons so that she could have the dress of their dreams. — Hamish Bowles

Bond investors want growth much like equity investors, and to the extent that too much austerity leads to recession or stagnation then credit spreads widen out - even if a country can print its own currency and write its own cheques. — Bill Gross

I can not give you the reference of Ram Chandar or Krishna, because they were not historical figures. I can not help it but to present to you the names of (Hazrat) Abu Bakar (RA) and (Hazrat) Umar Farooq (RA). They were leaders of a vast Empire, yet they lived a life of austerity. — Mahatma Gandhi

Philippians 4:11-13 goes directly against both the prosperity, and the austerity, gospel. — Darren Edwards

And there is nothing wastes so rapidly as liberality, for even whilst you exercise it you lose the power to do so, and so become either poor or despised, or else - in avoiding poverty - rapacious and hated. And a leader should guard himself, above all things, against being despised and hated; and liberality leads you to both. Therefore it is wiser to have a reputation for austerity which brings reproach without hatred, than to be compelled through seeking a reputation for liberality to incur a name for rapacity which begets reproach with hatred. — Niccolo Machiavelli

Extreme concupiscence may be found under extreme austerity. — Margaret Of Valois

Poetry glories in excess. When it's not extolling the virtues of austerity. — Jacqueline Carey

The more we can do to address fiscal austerity, the better our markets will do, and there is a real political shift to doing that. — Meredith Whitney

In Europe there's an dangerous growth of ultra xenophobia which is pretty threatening to any one who remembers the history of Europe ... and an attack on the remnants of the welfare state. It's hard to interpret the austerity-in-the-midst-of-recession policy as anything other than attack on the social contract. — Noam Chomsky

He is every assertion the fucking War has ever made-that we are meant for work and government, for austerity: and these shall take priority over love, dreams, the spirit, the senses and the other second-class trivia that are found among the idle and mindless hours of the day ...
Gravity's Rainbow — Thomas Pynchon

There is no language so filthy as Spanish. There are words for all the vile words in English and there are other words and expressions that are used only in countries where blasphemy keeps pace with the austerity of religion. — Ernest Hemingway,

But this practice [vegetarianism], in which youthful love of austerity finds charm, calls for attentions more complicated than those of culinary refinement itself; and it separates us too much from the common run of men in a function which is nearly always public, and in which either friendship or formality presides. — Marguerite Yourcenar