Miser Quotes & Sayings

To them, as to Magnus, time was like rain, glittering as it fell, changing the world, but something that could also be taken for granted.
Until you loved a mortal. Then time became gold in a miser's hands, every bright year counted out carefully, infinitely precious, and each one slipping through your fingers. — Cassandra Clare

Therefore, in order not to have to rob his subjects, to be able to defend himself, not to become poor and contemptible, and not to be forced to become rapacious, a prince must consider it of little importance if he incurs the reputation of being a miser, for this is one of the vices that permits him to rule. — Niccolo Machiavelli

The miser, poor fool, not only starves his body, but also his own soul. — Theodore Parker

Nowadays almost all man's improvements, so called, as the building of houses, and the cutting down of the forest and of all large trees, simply deform the landscape, and make it more tame and cheap ... and some worldly miser with a surveyor looking after his bounds, while heaven had taken place around him, and he did not see the angles going to and fro, but was looking for an old post-hole in the midst of paradise. I looked again, and saw him standing in the middle of a boggy, stygian, fen, surrounded by devils, and he had found his bounds without a doubt, three little stones, where a stake had been driven, and looking nearer, I saw that the prince of Darkness was his surveyor. — Henry David Thoreau

He [the miser] falls down and worships the god of this world, but will have neither its pomps, its vanities nor its pleasures for his trouble. — Charles Caleb Colton

You don't have to be a miser, just be wiser with your money. — Dorethia Conner Kelly

A man is the prisoner of his power. A topical memory makes him an almanac; a talent for debate, disputant; skill to get money makes him a miser, that is, a beggar. Culture reduces these inflammations by invoking the aid of other powers against the dominant talent, and by appealing to the rank of powers. It watches success. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

When it comes to money, you can't win. If you focus on making it, you're materialistic. If you try to but don't make any, you're a loser. If you make a lot and keep it, you're a miser. If you make it and spend it, you're a spendthrift. If you don't care about making it, you're unambitious. If you make a lot and still have it when you die, you're a fool-for trying to take it with you. The only way to really win with money is to hold it loosely-and be generous with it to accomplish things of value. — John C. Maxwell

There is no
room for the love of others within the tight, crowded miser's hole of a private
ego. Be empty in order to be filled. 'He that loveth his life shall lose it; and
he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. — Ayn Rand

Hebe's here, May is here!
The air is fresh and sunny;
And the miser-bees are busy
Hoarding golden honey. — Thomas Bailey Aldrich

The mind is a miser," he said. "Nothing is ever thrown away, and it's amazing what you can find if you dig deep enough. — Barry Hughart

Oh, I wish I were a miser; being a miser must be so occupying. — Gertrude Stein

The miser and the glutton are two facetious buzzards: one hides his store, and the other stores his hide. — Josh Billings

Time was like the rain, glittering as it fell, changing the world, but something that could also be taken for granted. Until you love a mortal. Then time became gold in a miser's hands, every bright year counted out carefully, infinitely precious, and each one slipping through you fingers.
Cassandra Clare: What Really Happened in Peru — Cassandra Clare

The miser, starving his brother's body, starves also his own soul, and at death shall creep out of his great estate of injustice, poor and naked and miserable. — Theodore Parker

The time arrives. 'It is a waltz, I think,' Miss Larkins doubtfully observes, when I present myself. 'Do you waltz? If not, Captain Bailey - ' But I do waltz (pretty well, too, as it happens), and I take Miss Larkins out. I take her sternly from the side of Captain Bailey. He is wretched, I have no doubt; but he is nothing to me. I have been wretched, too. I waltz with the eldest Miss Larkins! I don't know where, among whom, or how long. I only know that I swim about in space, with a blue angel, in a state of blissful delirium, until I find myself alone with her in a little room, resting on a sofa. She admires a flower (pink camellia japonica, price half-a-crown), in my button-hole. I give it her, and say: 'I ask an inestimable price for it, Miss Larkins.' 'Indeed! What is that?' returns Miss Larkins. 'A flower of yours, that I may treasure it as a miser does gold.' 'You're a bold boy,' says Miss Larkins. 'There. — Charles Dickens

To hold fealty to your own and to call it a high virtue is ludicrous. Even animals protect their own. It is a good, but it is a common good, an easy one. It's a miser who says he grows rich not for himself, but for his children. His vice is not thus magically made virtue. — Brent Weeks

For wolves, as for dogs, life is a briefer thing than for men, if you measure it by counting days and how many turns of a season one sees. But in two years, a cub wolf does all a man does in a score. He comes to the full of his strength and size, he learns all that is needful for him to be a hunter or a mate or a leader. The candle of his life burns briefer and brighter than a man's. In a decade of years, he does all that a man does in five or six times that many. A year passes for a wolf as a decade does for a man. Time is no miser when one lives always in the now. — Robin Hobb

When a miser contents himself with giving nothing, and saving what he has got, and is in other respects guilty of no injustice, he is, perhaps, of all bad men the least injurious to society; the evil he does is properly nothing more than the omission of the good he might do. If, of all the vices, avarice is the most generally detested, it is the effect of an avidity common to all men; it is because men hate those from whom they can expect nothing. The greedy misers rail at sordid misers. — Claude Adrien Helvetius

Memory is the miser of the mind; forgetfulness the spendthrift. — Robert Green Ingersoll

The avarice of the miser may be termed the grand sepulchral of all his other passions, as they successively decay. — Charles Caleb Colton

Avarice is the miser's dream, as fame is the poet's. — William Hazlitt

Miserliness has its own conveniences, otherwise nobody would be a miser. If you are not a miser, you become more insecure. If you cling to money, to things, you feel a certain security: at least there is something to ding to; you don't feel empty. Maybe you are full of rubbish; but at least something is there, you are not empty. — Rajneesh

The happiest miser on earth is the man who saves up every friend he can make. — Robert E. Sherwood

I was grotesque to the theatrical pitch, a stage miser, but I was certainly not a physical impossibility — H.G.Wells

If I knew a miser, who gave up every kind of comfortable living, all the pleasure of doing good to others, all the esteem of his fellow-citizens, and the joys of benevolent friendship, for the sake of accumulating wealth. Poor man, said I, you pay too much for your whistle. — Benjamin Franklin

Of all books printed, probably not more than half are ever read. Many are embalmed in public libraries; many go into private quarters to fill spaces; many are glanced at and put away ... scarcely opened until the fire needs kindling. The most ardent book-lovers are not always the greatest readers; indeed, the rabid bibliomaniac seldom reads at all. To him books are as ducats to the miser, something to be hoarded and not employed ... So pleasant it is to buy book; so tiresome to utilize them. — Flora Haines Loughead

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

Want of money and the distress of a thief can never be alleged as the cause of his thieving, for many honest people endure greater hardships with fortitude. We must therefore seek the cause elsewhere than in want of money, for that is the miser's passion, not the thief s. — William Blake

Vices are simply overworked virtues, anyway. Economy and frugality are to be commended but follow them on in an increasing ratio and what do we find at the other end? A miser! If we overdo the using of spare moments we may find an invalid at the end, while perhaps if we allowed ourselves more idle time we would conserve our nervous strength and health to more than the value the work we could accomplish by emulating at all times the little busy bee.
I once knew a woman, not very strong, who to the wonder of her friends went through a time of extraordinary hard work without any ill effects.
I asked her for her secret and she told me that she was able to keep her health, under the strain, because she took 20 minutes, of each day in which to absolutely relax both mind and body. She did not even "set and think." She lay at full length, every muscle and nerve relaxed and her mind as quiet as her body. This always relieved the strain and renewed her strength. — Laura Ingalls Wilder

Famous Quotes on: Honesty, Wisdom, Thomas Jefferson
Rich honesty dwells like a miser, sir, in a poor house; as your pearl in a foul oyster. — William Shakespeare

Giving with glad and generous hearts has a way of routing out the tough old miser within us. Even the poor need to know that they can give. Just the very act of letting go of money, or some other treasure, does something within us. It destroys the demon greed. — Richard J. Foster

If you want to become an infinite source of love, then go on sharing love as much as you can. Don't be a miser; only misers lose energy. — Rajneesh

We ought to run after crosses as the miser runs after money ... Nothing but crosses will reassure us at the Day of Judgment When that day shall come, we shall be happy in our misfortunes, proud of our humiliations, and rich in our sacrifices! — John Vianney

To be a book-collector is to combine the worst characteristics of a dope fiend with those of a miser. — Robertson Davies

Every man serves a useful purpose: a miser, for example, makes a wonderful ancestor. — Laurence J. Peter

Never was a miser a brave soul. — George Herbert

The ambitious sacrifices all to what he terms honor, as the miser all to money. — Johann Kaspar Lavater

[On Christianity:] Its lip-service and its empty rites have made it the easiest of all tasks for the usurer to cloak his cruelties, the miser to hide his avarice, the lawyer to condone his lies, the sinner of all social sins to purchase the social immunity from them by outward deference to churches. — Ouida

Overcome the angry by non-anger; overcome the wicked by goodness; overcome the miser by generosity; overcome the liar by truth. — Gautama Buddha

I try to find the books that I lost or forgot more than 30 years ago on another continent, with the hope and dedication and bitterness of those who search for their first lost books, books that if found I wouldn't read anyway, because I've already read them over and over, but that I would look at and touch just as the miser strokes the coins under which he's buried ... Books are like ghosts — Roberto Bolano

If you got to castrate your miser'ble self with a piece o' rusty barb wire, do it. — Fred Phelps

Conquer anger by love, evil by good; Conquer the miser with liberality, and the liar with truth. — Gautama Buddha

A runner is a miser, spending the pennies of his energy with great stinginess, constantly wanting to know how much he has spent and how much longer he will be expected to pay. He wants to be broke at precisely the moment he no longer needs his coin. — John L. Parker Jr.

Mutability is the badge of infirmity. It is seldom that a man continues to wish and design the same thing two days alike. Now he is for marrying; and now a mistress is preferred to a wife. Now he is ambitious and aspiring; presently the meanest servant is not more humble than he. This hour he squanders his money away; the next he turns miser. Sometimes he is frugal and serious; at other times profuse, airy, and gay. — Pierre Charron

Always remember how much more valuable is the strength of fortitude, than the grace of sensibility. Do not, however, confound fortitude with apathy; apathy cannot know the virtue. Remember, too, that one act of beneficence, one act of real usefulness, is worth all the abstract sentiment in the world. Sentiment is a disgrace, instead of an ornament, unless it lead us to good actions. The miser, who thinks himself respectable, merely because he possesses wealth, and thus mistakes the means of doing good, for the actual accomplishment of it, is not more blamable than the man of sentiment, without active virtue. You may have observed persons, who delight so much in this sort of sensibility to sentiment, which excludes that to the calls of any practical virtue, that they turn from the distressed, and, because their sufferings are painful to be contemplated, do not endeavour to relieve them. How despicable is that humanity, which can be contented to pity, where it might assuage!" St. — Eliza Parsons

The miser robs himself. — Johann Kaspar Lavater

This is the artist, then, life's hungry man, the glutton of eternity, beauty's miser, glory's slave. — Tom Wolfe

At 46 one must be a miser; only have time for essentials. — Virginia Woolf

The sceptic, when he plunges into the depths of infidelity, like the miser who leaps from the shipwreck, will find that the treasures which he bears about him will only sink him deeper in the abyss. — Charles Caleb Colton

LXXV
So are you to my thoughts as food to life,
Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground;
And for the peace of you I hold such strife
As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found.
Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon
Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure;
Now counting best to be with you alone,
Then better'd that the world may see my pleasure:
Sometime all full with feasting on your sight,
And by and by clean starved for a look;
Possessing or pursuing no delight
Save what is had, or must from you be took.
Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,
Or gluttoning on all, or all away. — William Shakespeare

A miser is merely a pauper with fewer friends. — Anthony Ryan

October turned my maple's leaves to gold; The most are gone now; here and there one lingers: Soon these will slip from the twigs' weak hold, Like coins between a dying miser's fingers. — Thomas Bailey Aldrich

You never have to drag mercy out of Christ, as money from a miser. — Charles Spurgeon

As we hypnotically watch the steadily diminishing reserve of sand in life's hourglass, the instincts of a miser surface. Life is now savored, sipped as with a fine 19th Century French wine. — Joe L. Wheeler

Be watchful lest thou lose the power of desiring and loving what appeals to the soul this is the miser's curse this the chain and ball the sensualist drags. — John Lancaster Spalding

Only when you can feel contempt for your own priceless little ego, only then can you achieve the true, broad peace of selflessness, the merging of your spirit with the vast collective spirit of mankind. There is no room for the love of others within the tight, crowded miser's hole of a private ego. — Ayn Rand

Silence the angry man with love. Silence the ill-natured man with kindness. Silence the miser with generosity. Silence the liar with truth. — Gautama Buddha

And perhaps it was precisely because she knew nothing at all about chess that chess for her was not simply a parlor game or a pleasant pastime, but a mysterious art equal to all the recognized arts. She had never been in close contact with such people - there was no one to compare him with except those inspired eccentrics, musicians and poets whose image one knows as clearly and as vaguely as that of a Roman Emperor, an inquisitor or a comedy miser. Her memory contained a modest dimly lit gallery with a sequence of all the people who had in any way caught her fancy. — Vladimir Nabokov

When we begin to understand the concept of Karma we will never ever blame God for anything that happens to us. We will realise that we are responsible for all that happens to us. As we sow, so shall we reap. Rich or poor, saint or sinner, miser or philanthropist, learned or illiterate ... This is the Universal Law that applies to individuals, to whole communities, societies, nations and races. As we sow, so shall we reap. — Dada Vaswani

The coward regards himself as cautious, the miser as thrifty. — Publilius Syrus

We get the worrywart, the hypochondriac, the money-grubbing miser, the intractable negotiator ... Some would say certain of these refer to the stereotypical, or 'stage' Jew. But objectively speaking, the only crime in humor is an unfunny joke. — Alan King

I covet honour in the same way as a miser covets gold. — Hans Christian Andersen

Tis strange the miser should his cares employTo gain those riches he can ne'er enjoy;Is it less strange the prodigal should wasteHis wealth to purchase what he ne'er can taste? — Alexander Pope

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. — John Dryden

A miser grows rich by seeming poor; an extravagant man grows poor by seeming rich. — William Shenstone

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. — Adam Smith

A miser is sometimes a grand personification of fear. He has a fine horror of poverty; and he is not content to keep want from the door, or at arm's length, but he places it, by heaping wealth upon wealth, at a sublime distance! — Charles Lamb

The coward reckons himself cautious, the miser frugal. — Henry Home, Lord Kames

She suffers as a miser. She must be miserly with her pleasures, as well. I wonder if sometimes she doesn't wish she were free of this monotonous sorrow, of these mutterings which start as soon as she stops singing, if she doesn't wish to suffer once and for all, to drown herself in despair. In any case, it would be impossible for her: she is bound. — Jean-Paul Sartre

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. — William F. Buckley Jr.

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. — Eric Hoffer

Our material possessions, like our joys, are enhanced in value by being shared. Hoarded and unimproved property can only afford satisfaction to a miser. — George D. Prentice

For quite some time now, like the foetus inside a womb, a terrible knowledge had been ripening within me and filling my soul with frightened foreboding: that the Infinite Universe is inflating at incredible speed, like some ridiculous soap bubble. I become obsessed with a miser's piercing anxiety whenever I allow myself to think that the Universe may be slipping out into space, like water through cupped hands, and that, ultimately - perhaps even today, perhaps not till tomorrow or for several light years - it will dissolve for ever into emptiness, as though it were made not of solid matter but only of fleeting sound. — Tadeusz Borowski

To the eyes of a miser a guinea is more beautiful than the sun, and a bag worn with the use of money has more beautiful proportions than a vine filled with grapes. — William Blake

... praise any word that can hold you. Praise all but the vanishing point where we stand now, not quite parted. Already memories fall like blows. But soon they will be treasure, dropped like gold through a miser's fingers as he makes his accounts ... Praise each insomniac hour, kept wide awake by your glow. Sleep would only have robbed more coins from this vandal hoarded store. — Barbara Kingsolver

When I caution you against becoming a miser, I do not therefore advise you to become a prodigal or a spendthrift. — Horace

Miser Shen is preparing to spend the night with a goat. — Barry Hughart

A kind man who makes good use of wealth is rightly said to possess a great treasure; but the miser who hoards up his riches will have no profit. — Gautama Buddha

The Blessed Sacrament is the magnet of souls. There is a mutual attraction between Jesus and the souls of men. Mary drew Him down from heaven. Our nature attracted Him rather than the nature of angels. Our misery caused Him to stoop to our lowness. Even our sins had a sort of attraction for the abundance of His mercy and the predilection of His grace. Our repentance wins Him to us. Our love makes earth a paradise to Him; and our souls lure Him as gold lures the miser, with irresistible fascination — Frederick William Faber

The devil lies brooding in the miser's chest. — Thomas Fuller

Riches, in the hands of a man that is wise and generous, are good for something, but in the hands of a sordid, sneaking, covetous miser, they are good for nothing. — Matthew Henry

The deep art ... That's the part that has to be guarded like a miser would his money ... Like a dope addict would his dope ... Like a lover with their love. — Alonzo King

For the army is a school in which the miser becomes generous, and the generous prodigal; miserly soldiers are like monsters, but very rarely seen. — Miguel De Cervantes

Abel Muranda fought off furious red ants with mandibles that could cut through a miser's padlock. — Taona Dumisani Chiveneko

If you have a talent, use it in every which way possible. Don't hoard it. Don't dole it out like a miser. Spend it lavishly like a millionaire intent on going broke. — Brendan Francis

As you give yourself wholeheartedly to me, I am able to give back to you with greater abundance. Do not be a miser with your spirit. Commit to me. Spend energy on me and I will reward you with a life beyond your dreams. — Julia Cameron

The miser is as much in want of what he has as of what he has not. — Publilius Syrus

It is better to lose health like a spendthrift than to waste it like a miser. — Robert Louis Stevenson

A thorough: miser must possess considerable strength of character to bear the self-denial imposed by his penuriousness. Equal sacrifices, endured voluntarily in a better cause, would make a saint or a martyr. — William Benton Clulow

He could see perfectly well that "it," his life, was leading nowhere, that he wss behaving like a miser who hoards gold simply for the pleasure of looking at it, except that in his case it wssn't gold but experience, which was the one thing he took from life. And yet experience, unless applied to something, is just like that hoard of gold, for it neither produces nor bears fruit and is utterly useless. There is no point in a man accumulating experience the way someone else might collect stamps. — Jose Saramago

Is demum miser est, cuius nobilitas miserias nobilitat. Unhappy is he whose fame makes his misfortunes famous. Lucius Accius, Telephus — Robert Galbraith

According to the Spanish proverb, four persons are wanted to make a good salad: a spendthrift for oil, a miser for vinegar, a counsellor for salt and a madman to stir it all up. — John Gerard

To the truly benevolent mind, indeed, nothing is more satisfactory than to hear of a miser denying himself the necessaries of life a little too far and ridding us of his presence altogether. — James Payn

Thought is a key to all treasures; the miser's gains are ours without his cares. Thus I have soared above this world, where my enjoyment have been intellectual joys. — Honore De Balzac

Experiences are savings which a miser puts aside. Wisdom is an inheritance which a wastrel cannot exhaust. — Karl Kraus

I think probably the first time I wanted to be an artist was when I was about six or seven years old. I used to get British comics and I clearly remember seeing my first American comic: an issue of 'Action Comics', with Superman on the cover with a treasure horde in a cave, and Lois saying something like 'I don't believe Superman is a miser!' — Dave Gibbons

Listen to me instead of your financial manager: It's okay to spend money, to save it, to give it away, to worry over it. It's just money. Your only enemy in life is time. Do be miser with time: hoard it, treasure it, don't squander a single minute of it. — Cassandra King

The miser puts his gold pieces into a coffer; but as soon as the coffer is closed, it is as if it were empty. — Andre Gide

You may choose to live like a miser," Leo said, "but I'll be damned if I have to. You're incapable of enjoying the moment because you're always intent on tomorrow. Well, for some people, tomorrow never comes."
Her temper flared. "Someone has to think of tomorrow, you selfish spendthrift!"
"Coming from an overbearing shrew - "
Win stepped between them, resting a gentle hand on Amelia's shoulder. "Hush, both of you. It serves no purpose to make yourselves cross just before we are to leave." She gave Amelia a sweet quirk of a smile that no one on earth could have resisted. "Don't frown like that, dear. What if your face stayed that way?"
"With prolonged exposure to Leo," Amelia replied, "it undoubtedly would. — Lisa Kleypas