Quotes About Value

Does the emerald lose its beauty for lack of admiration?

Every man is worth just so much as the things about which he busies himself.

Some things are hurrying into existence and others are hurrying out of it and of that which is coming into existence, part is already extinguished. In this flowing stream then, on which there is no abiding, what is there of things which hurry on by on which a man would set a high price. It would be just as if a man should fall in love with one of the sparrows which fly by but has already passed out of sight.

From my Great-grandfather, not to have frequented public schools, and to have had good teachers at home, and to know that on such things a man should spend liberally.

praise does not make anything better or worse.

fame in a world like this is worthless.

In this flowing stream, then, on which there is no abiding, what is there of the things which hurry by on which a man would set a high price? It would be just as if a man should fall in love with one of the sparrows which fly by, but it has already passed out of sight.

Does the emerald lose its beauty for lack of admiration? Does gold, or ivory, or purple? A lyre or a dagger, a rosebud or a sapling?

Think not so much of what you lack as of what you have: but of the things that you have, select the best, and then reflect on how eagerly you would have sought them if you did not have them.

every man is worth   just so much as the things are worth about which he busies himself. 

27. Treat what you don't have as nonexistent. Look at what you have, the things you value most, and think of how much you'd crave them if you didn't have them. But be careful. Don't feel such satisfaction that you start to overvalue them—that it would upset you to lose them.

A key point to bear in mind: The value of attentiveness varies in proportion to its object. You're better off not giving the small things more time than they deserve.

The opinion of 10,000 people is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject.

Is an emerald suddenly flawed if no one admires it?

How strangely men act. They will not praise those who are living at the same time and living with themselves; but to be themselves praised by posterity, by those whom they have never seen or ever will see, this they set much value on. But this is very much the same as if you should be grieved because those who have lived before you did not praise you.

The value of attentiveness varies in proportion to its object. You're better off not giving the small things more time than they deserve.

When the longest- and shortest-lived of us dies their loss is precisely equal. For the sole thing of which any of us can be deprived is the present, since this is all we own, and nobody can lose what is not theirs.

Altogether the interval is small between birth and death; and consider with how much trouble, and in company with what sort of people and in what a feeble body this interval is laboriously passed. Do not then consider life a thing of any value. For look to the immensity of time behind thee, and to the time which is before thee, another boundless space. In this infinity then what is the difference between him who lives three days and him who lives three generations?

He claimed that a man's life should be valued according to the value of the things to which he gave his attention.

Neither worse then nor better is a thing made by being praised.

Note that everything that happens, happens justly, and if you observe carefully, you will find it to be so, not only with respect to the continuity of the series of things, but with respect to what is just, as if it were done by one who assigns to each thing its value.

No religion, no Ethical philosophy is worth anything, if the teacher has not lived the life of an apostle, and been ready to die the death of a martyr.

Indeed, the application of the adjective "stoic" to a person who shows strength and courage in misfortune probably owes more to the aristocratic Roman value system than it does to Greek philosophers. Stoicism

Consider that everything which happens, happens justly, and if thou observest carefully, thou wilt find it to be so. I do not say only with respect to the continuity of the series of things, but with respect to what is just, and as if it were done by one who assigns to each thing its value. Observe then as thou hast begun; and whatever thou doest, do it in conjunction with this, the being good, and in the sense in which a man is properly understood to be good. Keep to this in every action.