Gold, silver, jewels: dust, heaps of manure. Gratification, sensual pleasures, satisfaction of the appetites: like a beast, like a mule, like a cock, like a pig, like a bull. Honours, distinctions, titles: things of air, puffs of pride, lies, nothingness.

[Luxury] corrupts both rich and poor, the rich
by having it and the poor by wanting it.

When wealth and honours lead to arrogancy, this brings its evil on itself.

Suicidal glory is the luxury of the irresponsible.

[Luxury] corrupts both rich and poor, the rich by having it and the poor by wanting it.

Glory, built
On selfish principles, is shame and guilt.

When extraordinary power and extraordinary pay are allotted to any individual in a government, he becomes the center, round which every kind of corruption generates and forms. Give to any man a million a year, and add thereto the power of creating and disposing of places, at the expense of a country, and the liberties of that country are no longer secure. What is called the splendour of a throne is no other than the corruption of the state. It is made up of a band of parasites, living in luxurious indolence, out of the public taxes.

Titles are but nick-names, and every nickname is a title. The thing is perfectly harmless in itself, but it marks a sort of foppery in the human character, which degrades it. It reduces man into the diminutive of man in things which are great, and the counterfeit of women in things which are little. It talks about its fine blue ribbon like a girl, and shows its new garter like a child. A certain writer, of some antiquity, says: "When I was a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things."

See the long pomp in gorgeous glare display'd, The tinsel'd guards, the squadron'd horse parade; See heralds gay, with emblems on their vest, In tissu'd robes, tall, beauteous pages drest; Amid superior ranks of splendid slaves, Lords, Dukes and Princes, titulary knaves, Confus'dly shine their crosses, gems and stars, Sceptres and globes and crowns and spoils of wars.

Surfeit begets insolence, when prosperity comes to a bad man.

The bourgeois, for his part, possessed neither of the inordinate ambitions of the great nor of the patience of the poor, would seem to have to remain ignorant both of the sins of whose who exalted themselves and of the merits of those who humbled themselves. Bossuet, speaking of this world, complains that the "license of great fortunes exceeds all bounds." This, he says, leads to "those prevailing sins which are not satisfied to be tolerated, or even excused, but which seek even to be applauded."

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Await alike the inevitable hour: The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Boasting of wealth and virtue brings your demise.

I find that even Eminent Writers (such as Raymund Lully, Paracelsus, and others) do so abuse the termes they employ, that as they will now and then give divers things one name, so they will oftentimes give one thing, many Names; and some of them (perhaps) such, as do much more properly signifie some Distinct Body of another kind; nay even in Technical Words or Termes of Art, they refrain not from this Confounding Liberty; but will, as I have Observ'd call the same Substance, sometimes the Sulphur, and Sometimes the Mercury, of a Body.