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:
“Enthusiastic partisans of the idea of progress are in danger of failing to recognize ... the immense riches accumulated by the human race.... By underrating the achievements of the past, they devalue all those which still remain to be accomplished.”
—Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908–1990)