Thrift Quotes

“Thrift is poetic because it is creative; waste is unpoetic because it is waste.”
― G.K. Chesterton, What's Wrong with the World

“Such a simplified lifestyle can be truly wonderful - you'll finally have time for the things you really love, for relaxation, for outdoor activities, for exercise, for reading or finding peace and quiet, for the loved ones in your life, for the things you're most passionate about. This is what it means to thrive - to live a life full of the things you want in them, and not more. To live a better quality of life without having to spend and buy and consume.”
― Leo Babauta, Thriving on Less: Simplifying in a Tough Economy

“Heri kuwa maskini mwenye pesa nyingi kuliko tajiri mwenye mifuko iliyotoboka.”
― Enock Maregesi

“I grew to judge every purchase by how many bronze screws I could buy for the boat if I didn't spend on this or made do without that.”
― Lin Pardey, Bull Canyon: A Boatbuilder, a Writer and Other Wildlife

“Inherited wealth may be easily squandered, but inherited poverty is a legacy almost impossible to loose.”
― Eric Haney, Inside Delta Force

“Unforgettable experiences are generally worth splurging on; unlike stuff, memories don’t wear out (or take up space, get dusty, break, or get stolen). If you really want to go and work at an orangutan orphanage in Borneo, it will be worth the cash.”
― Rosie Blythe, The Princess Guide to Life

“Never throw away what you are able to sell or give away.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr, CEO of Mayflower-Plymouth

“Why they were loaded with bags of beans and peas and anything else they happened to pick up when they were still some distance away from the street where the first blind man and his wife lived, for that is where they are going, is a question that could only occur to someone who has never in his life suffered shortages.”
― José Saramago, Blindness

“Conservatism -- hard work -- saving one's money -- looking neat and gentlemanly. It was such an Eveless paradise, that.”
― Theodore Dreiser

“You can think of a lot of things to make out of nothing, if you have to.”
― Louise Dickinson Rich, We Took to the Woods

“Heri kuishi kama maskini mwenye pesa nyingi kuliko tajiri mwenye mifuko iliyotoboka, kuliko kusema mbele za watu kwamba pesa haijakupa furaha. Wengi hupata jeuri ya kusema hivyo kutokana na umaskini wa watu wanaowazunguka.”
― Enock Maregesi

“Maskini mwenye pesa nyingi ni tajiri bahili. Tajiri mwenye mifuko iliyotoboka ni tajiri badhiri.”
― Enock Maregesi

“Financial uncertainty turns some people into misers and others into spendthrifts.”
― Rebecca Loncraine, The Real Wizard of Oz: The Life and Times of L. Frank Baum

“We're not very good when we're spending other people's money.”
― Jason Jennings, The Reinventors: How Extraordinary Companies Pursue Radical Continuous Change

“The doctor's wife was not particularly keen on the tendency of proverbs to preach, nevertheless something of this ancient lore must have remained in her memory, the proof being that she filled two of the bags they had brought with beans and chick peas, Keep what is of no use at the moment, and later you will find what you need, one of her grandmothers had told her, the water in which you soak them will also serve to cook them, and whatever remains from the cooking will cease to be water, but will have become broth. It is not only in nature that from time to time not everything is lost and something is gained.”
― José Saramago, Blindness

“Any degree of waste is too much.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Mtu anayesema pesa haijampa furaha hana nia ya kusaidia watu.”
― Enock Maregesi

“Toa msaada katika jamii iliyosaidia kukulea ulipokuwa mdogo.”
― Enock Maregesi

“What really boils me blood is that it's not that Daddy didn't have money, but he never could think of a single good reason to spend it.”
― Marlon James

“That law of nature whereby everything climbs to higher platforms, and bodily vigor becomes mental and moral vigor. The bread he eats is first strength and animal spirits; it becomes, in higher laboratories, imagery and thought; and in still higher results, courage and endurance. This is the right compound interest; this is capital doubled, quadrupled, centupled; man raised to his highest power. The true thrift is always to spend on the higher plane; to invest and invest, with keener avarice, that he may spend in spiritual creation and not in augmenting animal existence.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Conduct of Life

“On the way to the cake shop I kept stopping to shake the wet leaves off the soles of my brown suede Whistles boots. I bought them at Sue Ryder, the charity shop in Camden Town. [...] I know how to find good clothes in those places. First scan the rails for an awkward colour, anything that jumps out as being a bit ugly, like dirty mustard, salmon pink or olive green with a bit too much brown in it. A print with an unusual combination of colours – dark green and pink, bright orange and ultramarine – is also worth checking out. If the quality of the fabric is good, pull the garment out and check the label. Well-cut clothes can look misshapen on a hanger because they're cut to look good on the body. I'll buy a good piece if it fits, even if it doesn't sometimes. Even if it's not my style or has short sleeves, or I don't like the shape or the buttons. I learn to love it. I never tire of clothes I've bought that I've had to adjust to. It's the compromise, the awkward gap that has to be bridged that makes something, someone, lovable.”
― Viv Albertine, To Throw Away Unopened

“They just want to know what we stand for; our spending choices is one way that we articulate this.”
― Ron Lieber, The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money

“Nobody in Colonial America, to be sure, believed that society owed every child the ultimate in education, but intelligence, industry, and thrift combined with ambition got many a poor man's son into the colonial colleges.”
― Louis B. Wright

“We’re taught we can pay for everything we need. Our very lives can be purchased, and by extension, we can buy the rights to a fragmented community of like-minded consumers. Our unifying activity as a culture is shopping, and the one thing we all are is consumers.”
― Elizabeth Willard Thames, Meet the Frugalwoods: Achieving Financial Independence Through Simple Living

“The hardest thing about having everything is finding something else that you don't need.”
― Wyatt B. Pringle, Jr.