The spendthrift—who is not to be confused with the epicure and the merely frivolous, although all these elements can be blended in a given case—becomes indifferent to the object once he possesses it. For this reason his enjoyment of it is marred by the curse of restlessness and transience. The moment of its beginning is also that of its undoing. The life of the spendthrift is marked by the same demonic formula as that of the miser: every pleasure attained arouses the desire for further pleasure, which can never be satisfied. Satisfaction can never be gained because it is being sought in a form that from the beginning foregoes its ends and is confined to means and to the moment before fulfillment.

Georg Simmel, on individuality and social…, loc. 462