Quotes About Value

A subtle thought that is in error may yet give rise to fruitful inquiry that can establish truths of great value.

A planet full of people meant nothing against the dictates of economic necessity!

O Diamond! Diamond! thou little knowest the mischief done!

I would not change my blest estate for all the world calls good or great.

basic difference in judgment arises from the existence of two distinct and sharply contrasting ways of coming to conclusions. One way is by the use of thinking, that is, by a logical process, aimed at an impersonal finding. The other is by feeling, that is, by appreciation—equally reasonable in its fashion—bestowing on things a personal, subjective value.

The notion of the perfect whole, the ultimate solution in which all good things coexist, seems to me not merely unobtainable--that is a truism--but conceptually incoherent. ......Some among the great goods cannot live together. That is a conceptual truth. We are doomed to choose, and every choice may entail an irreparable loss.

But what was more violent than making people disbelieve in the worth of their own lives? What was more violent than making them believe they deserved less and less every day?

I learned that you are not free until you stop others from making you feel worthless. Because if you do not, you will eventually accept that you are worthless.

When the press characterized the Simpson trial as the trial of the century, in a century in which the Nuremberg trials had occurred, were they saying that this one blonde was worth more than all the victims of the Nazis? That this trial was more important than tribunals for the murderers from Serbia and Rwanda?

If human lives be, for their very brevity, sweet, then beast lives are sweeter still...

Take this single tree. They could cut it down and make half of it into an incense tray, decorate it with lacquer set with gold or silver filigree, and set it in an alcove of an aristocrat or man of high rank as a tasteful ornament. The other half they could make into wooden clogs for stepping through the mud. When you look at the two different shapes, one is admired while the other is considered mean, but they're the same in terms of the cutting down of a living tree.

When you gamble for tiles, you are skillful. When you gamble for your belt buckle, you begin to hesitate; and when you gamble for gold, you get confused. Your skill is the same, but you get cautious because you value something outside yourself. When you do this you become awkward inside." Lieh Tzu, Chapter 2

At times the mirror increases a thing's value, at times denies it.

No, writing has not changed me for the better at all; I have merely used up part of my restless, conscienceless youth. What value to me will these discontented pages be? The book, the vow, are worth no more than one is worth oneself. One can never be sure of saving one's soul by writing. One may go writing on and on with a soul already lost.

in everything that was most remote from her lay the value of having her, the sense of his being the one who had her.

Literature is a search for the book hidden in the distance that alters the value and meaning of the known books; it is the pull toward the new apocryphal text still to be rediscovered or invented.

Alte zile decât astea ale noastre nu sunt, pân? o s? intr?m în mormânt,[...]. De mi-o fi dat s? nu le irosesc, s? nu irosesc nimic din ce sunt ?i din ce-a? putea fi!

Si alguna vez te conviertes en la mitad de ti mismo, muchacho, y te lo deseo, comprenderás cosas que escapan a la normal inteligencia de los cerebros enteros. Habrás perdido la mitad de ti y del mundo, pero la mitad que quede será mil veces más profunda y valiosa. Y también tú querrás que todo esté demediado y desgarrado a tu imagen, porque belleza y sabiduría y justicia existen sólo en aquello que está hecho a trozos.

For Kundera, the weight of living is found in all types of restriction, in the dense network of public and private restrictions that ultimately envelops every life in ever-tighter bonds. His novel shows us how everything in life that we choose and value for its lightness quickly reveals its own unbearable heaviness. Perhaps

Karta ksi??ki tylko wtedy jest co? warta, je?li mo?esz j? odwróci? i dojrze? za ni? ?ycie, które na ni? napiera gwa?tem i miesza wszystkie karty.

Le donne oneste erano quelle che sapevano trovare l'acquirente al prezzo più alto, erano quelle che non consentivano all'amore che quando ci trovavano il loro tornaconto.

The first enslaving illusion is the idea that people are born to be consumers and that they can attain any of their goals by purchasing goods and services....What people do or make but will not or cannot put up for sale is as immeasurable and as invaluable for the economy as the oxygen they breathe.

Growth has become addictive. Like heroin addiction, the habit distorts basic value judgments. Addicts of any kind are willing to pay increasing amounts for declining satisfactions. They have become tolerant to escalating marginal disutility. They are blind to deeper frustration because they are absorbed in playing for always mounting stakes.

Beyond a critical speed, no one can save time without forcing another to lose it. The man who claims a seat in a faster vehicle insists that his time is worth more than that of the passenger in a slower one. Beyond a certain velocity, passengers become consumers of other people's time, and accelerating vehicles become the means for effecting a net transfer of life-time.