Orison Swett Marden：Pushing to the Front, Excerpt 372

Ruskin says that the tendency of the age is to expend its genius in perishable art, _as if it were a triumph to burn its thoughts away in bonfires_. Is the work you compel others to do useful to yourself and to society? If you employ a seamstress to make four or five or six beautiful flounces for your ball dress, flounces which will only clothe yourself, and which you will wear at only one ball, you are employing your money selfishly. Do not confuse covetousness with benevolence, nor cheat yourself into thinking that all the finery you can wear is so much put into the hungry mouths of those beneath you. It is what those who stand shivering on the street, forming a line to see you step out of your carriage, know it to be. These fine dresses do not mean that so much has been put into their mouths, but _that so much has been taken out of their mouths_.

Source： https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21291
Locator：Excerpt 372 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Short excerpt

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