embarrassment of riches

English edit

From John Ozell's 1738 translation of a French play, L'Embarras des richesses (1726) by Léonor Jean Christine Soulas d'Allainval.

embarrassment of riches (plural embarrassments of riches)

(idiomatic) An abundance or overabundance of something; too much of a good thing.
- 1908, Myrtle Reed, chapter 23, in Flower of the Dusk:
  Roger was in the library, trying to choose, from an embarrassment of riches, the ten of his father's books which he was to be permitted to take to the city.
- 2006 January 8, Daniel Ginsberg, “Opera in Berlin: A Staat of Flux”, in Washington Post, page N06:
  What might be an embarrassment of riches—a city with three independent and artistically distinct opera companies—may become a lose-lose-lose situation.

too much of a good thing