"Our incomes are like our shoes; if too small, they gall and pinch us; but if too large, they cause us to stumble and to trip"
About this Quote
Locke turns money into footwear because he’s trying to do something more surgical than praising “moderation.” Shoes are intimate technology: they touch the body all day, shaping how you move through the world. By yoking income to that physical, daily sensation, he smuggles moral philosophy into a practical complaint anyone can feel. Too little income “galls and pinches” not just the wallet but the psyche; scarcity isn’t abstract, it’s friction that builds into sores. The line catches the way need can dominate attention, narrowing a person’s choices until life becomes a limp.
The sharper move is the second half. “Too large” doesn’t mean “comfortable,” it means destabilizing. Locke’s subtext is anti-fantasy: beyond sufficiency, wealth can impair judgment, invite dependency on luxury, and distort one’s relationship to work and virtue. You don’t stride farther; you trip. That’s a quiet rebuke to aristocratic excess in a 17th-century England where consumption, patronage, and inherited status could look like destiny.
Context matters: Locke is a theorist of property and liberal government, often read as an architect of modern individual rights. This metaphor complicates the caricature of Locke as a cheerleader for accumulation. He’s arguing for fit-for-purpose prosperity: enough to move freely, not so much that the weight of possessions starts steering you. The wit is in the reversal: abundance, usually sold as security, becomes another kind of hazard - not pain, but loss of balance.
The sharper move is the second half. “Too large” doesn’t mean “comfortable,” it means destabilizing. Locke’s subtext is anti-fantasy: beyond sufficiency, wealth can impair judgment, invite dependency on luxury, and distort one’s relationship to work and virtue. You don’t stride farther; you trip. That’s a quiet rebuke to aristocratic excess in a 17th-century England where consumption, patronage, and inherited status could look like destiny.
Context matters: Locke is a theorist of property and liberal government, often read as an architect of modern individual rights. This metaphor complicates the caricature of Locke as a cheerleader for accumulation. He’s arguing for fit-for-purpose prosperity: enough to move freely, not so much that the weight of possessions starts steering you. The wit is in the reversal: abundance, usually sold as security, becomes another kind of hazard - not pain, but loss of balance.
Quote Details
| Topic | Money |
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