H. L. Mencken Quotes

Hollywood is just a bunch of people going around in Learjets to other people asking them if they've got any money? Well, they might have if they didn't spend it all on jets.

Wretched excess is an unfortunate human trait that turns a perfectly good idea such as Christmas into a frenzy of last-minute shopping.

Too many of us now tend to worship self indulgence and consumption.

I was raised in a solidly upper-middle class family who had really strong values and excess was not one of the things that my family put up with. And there's something wildy decadent about the young-star lifestyle, and I just don't really see the point.

Without grounding, it's easy to embrace the 'baller' lifestyle: dropping out of tech, throwing money at cars, boats and real estate, and slipping into a cycle of spending and indulgence.

We had access to too much money, too much equipment, and little by little, we went insane.

I haven't bought a yacht or an island or even a palm tree.

He is a great simpleton who imagines that the chief power of wealth is to supply wants. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred it creates more wants than it supplies.

I get so tired listening to complaints of one million dollars here, one million dollars there, it's so petty.

There's nothing like spending other peoples’ money

I thought I should have a Rolls, for prestige, so I ordered one. But when it came, I realized that I didn't really need it.

I was a millionaire twice over and half again before I was twenty-one. I stole every nickel of it and blew the bulk of the bundle on fine threads, gourmet foods, luxurious lodgings, fantastic foxes, fine wheels, and other sensual goodies.

I don't understand this pathetic need for luxuries.

In Westminster, we can sometimes forget just how much the public hate their money being wasted.

Technology loves and thrives and makes gobs of money on conspicuous consumption.

As soon as I got rich, it was mimosas every morning. I was taking my friends to Six Flags every weekend. We were flying to Hawaii; we did whatever we wanted.

I grew up a big fan of the J. R. Ewing character of the 'Dallas' TV show, and I grew up around people who were very similar to J. R.: they had come into a ton of money. And they loved to flaunt it and loved to drive fancy cars and wear the big cowboy hats and nice suits.

I used to have Lamborghinis, Ferraris parked up outside the house - just parked there with no one driving them! Now I'm much wiser, and I only have one car that I drive. What's the point of having three cars just parked up when you don't need them?

He that spends a Groat a day idly, spends idly above 6 l. a year, which is the Price of using 100 l.

We Americans are the most lavish and showiest and most luxury loving people on the earth; and at our masthead we fly one true and honest symbol, the gaudiest flag the world has ever seen.

People who are greedy have extraordinary capacities for waste-they must, they take in too much.

I see guys who can't make 10 percent of what I make, and yet they have four Bentleys, three houses, and four bodyguards.

The only thing that can console one for being poor is extravagance.

The first year I had money, I really went shopping. I got really caught up in it. I bought all my brothers sets of luggage, and I bought 'em winter coats from Giorgio Armani - winter coats. And I got a pair of socks from this brother.

If you would abolish covetousness, you must abolish its mother, profusion.