Mastodawn

A prodigal starts with ten thousand pounds, and dies worth nothing; a miser starts with nothing, and does worth ten thousand pounds. It has been asked which has had the best of it? I should presume the prodigal; he has spent a fortune — but the miser has only left one; — he has lived rich, to die poor; the miser has lived poor, to die rich; and if the prodigal quits life in debt to others, the miser quits it, still deeper in debt to himself.

Charles Caleb "C. C." Colton (1780-1832) English cleric, writer, aphorist
Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Vol. 2, § 131 (1822)

More about this quote: wist.info/colton-charles-caleb…

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Colton, Charles Caleb - Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Vol. 2, § 131 (1822) | WIST Quotations

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WIST Quotations Has Moved!Sep 9, 2025

A quotation from The Bible

And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.

[καὶ μετ᾽ οὐ πολλὰς ἡμέρας συναγαγὼν πάντα ὁ νεώτερος υἱὸς ἀπεδήμησεν εἰς χώραν μακρὰν καὶ ἐκεῖ διεσκόρπισεν τὴν οὐσίαν αὐτοῦ ζῶν ἀσώτως.]

The Bible (The New Testament) (AD 1st - 2nd C) Christian sacred scripture
Luke 15: 13, “Parable of the Prodigal Son” (Jesus) [KJV (1611)]

More info about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/bible-nt/78908/

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WIST Quotations moves again!Feb 23, 2024

A quotation from Dante Alighieri:

«
To what extremes, O cursèd lust for gold
will you not drive man’s appetite?

[Per che non reggi tu, o sacra fame
de l’oro, l’appetito de’ mortali?]
»

Full quote, sourcing, notes:
https://wist.info/dante-alighieri-poet/67420/

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The Divine Comedy [Divina Commedia], Book 2 "Purgatorio," Canto 22, l. 40ff (22.40-41) [Statius] (1314) [tr. Musa (1981)] - Dante Alighieri | WIST Quotations

To what extremes, O cursèd lust for gold will you not drive man's appetite? [Per che non reggi tu, o sacra fame de l’oro, l’appetito de’ mortali?] Statius quoting Virgil (whose shade stands in front of him) from The Aeneid, Book 3, ll. 56-57: Quid non mortalia pectora cogis,…

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