enough is enough

That is sufficient, no more is needed or wanted. “There is now enough” appeared in the works of numerous Roman writers (Horace, Martial, Plautus, and others), and “Enough is enough” was already a proverb by the time John Heywood amassed his 1546 collection. Versions in other Euro- pean languages—Italian, French, Dutch—append the notion that not only is enough sufficient, but that too much is bad. In any event, the expression was well on its way to being a cliché by the time Robert Southey wrote (The Doctor, 1834), “As for money, enough is enough; no man can enjoy more.” Wallis Warfield, Duchess of Windsor (1896–1986) reportedly disagreed, saying, “You can never be too rich or too thin” (attributed). A much more recent syn- onym is the interjection enough already, a translation of theYiddish genug shoyn.