An embarrassment of riches is an idiom that means an overabundance of something, or too much of a good thing, that originated in 1738 as John Ozell's translation of a French play, L'Embarras des richesses (1726), by Léonor Jean Christine Soulas d'Allainval.
Example: "All four of them have their own cars but there's no room in the driveway—an embarrassment of riches".
The idiom is also the title of other works:
- The Embarrassment of Riches, a 1918 drama film
- Embarrassment of Riches (EP), a 2006 music album by Elephant Micah
- The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age, a history book by Simon Schama
- An Embarrassment of Riches a 2000 novel written by Filipino author Charlson Ong
Famous quotes containing the word riches:
“All, or the greatest part of men that have aspired to riches or power, have attained thereunto either by force or fraud, and what they have by craft or cruelty gained, to cover the foulness of their fact, they call purchase, as a name more honest. Howsoever, he that for want of will or wit useth not those means, must rest in servitude and poverty.”
—Sir Walter Raleigh (1552–1618)