Quotes About Value

One of Teller's valuable insights is that pedestal-building creates the illusion of progress rather than actual progress itself.

No matter how far we get from the familiarity of betting at a poker table or in a casino, our decisions are always bets. We routinely decide among alternatives, put resources at risk, assess the likelihood of different outcomes, and consider what it is that we value. Every decision commits us to some course of action that, by definition, eliminates acting on other alternatives. Not placing a bet on something is, itself, a bet.

When we own something, we value it more highly than an identical item that we do not own. Richard Thaler was the first to name this cognitive illusion, calling it the endowment effect. In fact, he introduced the endowment effect in that same 1980 paper where he coined the term "sunk cost." He described the endowment effect as "the fact that people often demand more to give up an object than they would be willing to pay to acquire it.

When we're choosing among new options, loss aversion causes us to favor the ones that have the lowest absolute loss associated with them, even if those options come at a lower expected value. In other words, our aversion to taking a loss causes us to make decisions a rational actor would not.

The endowment effect helps unlock the mystery of why Harold Staw twice would not sell his stores. In his battle with the Texas shareholders, in which his good friend and lawyer defected to the other side, he was endowed to the California stores in a way that those on the other side of the suit were not. He was unwilling to sell the California stores, stores he had created and built, to protect the value of the Texas stores, stores he had not created and built.

The real advice we should give people is more complicated than you can fit in a four-word slogan: Quit while you're ahead . . . when the game you are playing or the path you are on is a losing proposition. If you are in a situation that carries with it a negative expected value, by all means quit. But keep going when you have a positive expected value.

An obvious and high-value application of kill criteria has to do with funnel management for a business's sales function. A big problem for sellers is managing all the opportunities at the top of the funnel: Which do you pursue? And, once you've started pursuing a lead, when do you give up on it?

If we value what we've inherited for free - from other women - surely it's right morally and ethically for us to wake up and say, 'I'm a feminist. '

A man, fallen on hard times, sold his art collection but kept his wine cellar. When asked why he did not sell his wine, he said, ìA man can live without art, but not without culture.

There are some things money can't buy. For everything else there's MasterCard.

The codfish lays ten thousands eggs, The homely hen lays one. The codfish never cackles To tell you what she's done. And so we scorn the codfish, While the humble hen we prize, Which only goes to show you That it pays to advertise.

You never really know the true value of a moment, until it becomes a memory.

When I was young in the business, I felt anything I wanted to buy personally and professionally was always too expensive.

Entrepreneurial profit is the expression of the value of what the entrepreneur contributes to production.

In the U.S., PC-makers have no incentive to lower prices because it kills their profit margins. They keep adding new features like high-end retina displays and faster processors to justify their high prices.

People should only profit to the extent they make other peoples lives better.

It is a beneficent incident of the ownership of land that a pioneer who reduces it to use, and helps to lay the foundations of a new State, finds a profit in the increasing value of land as the new State grows up.

If someone is going to profit from your work, they need to earn it.

If someone is doing that, saving the customer money, is making a profit so bad?

I think, in this country, we have a problem where we view the arts as charity, and therefore, it has no value. Things in America that have value are profitable, and unless you are profitable, we don't know where to put you.

Profits, like sausages... are esteemed most by those who know least about what goes into them.

In order to generate extraordinary profits, you must have a focus that is beyond profits. You need to focus on how you serve your clients.

The immigrant experience had a profound effect on me. It taught me the importance of hard work and the value of being entrepreneurial.

Even the 'Today' programme involves a balance between the worthy-but-heavy items with the worthless-but-entertainingly-light ones.