655 Value Quotes

I can't change the fact that my paintings don't sell. But the time will come when people will recognize that they are worth more than the value of the paints used in the picture.

What am I in the eyes of most people - a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person - somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then - even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart. That is my ambition, based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. And my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible momentum.

Analysis of rebellion leads at least to the suspicion that, contrary to the postulates of contemporary thought, a human nature does exist, as the Greeks believed. Why rebel if there is nothing permanent in oneself worth preserving? ... Rebellion, though apparently negative, since it creates nothing, is profoundly positive in that it reveals the part of man which must always be defended.

The true worth of a man is not to be found in man himself, but in the colours and textures that come alive in others.

A book is simply the container of an idea-like a bottle; what is inside the book is what matters.

The trade of the petty usurer is hated with most reason: it makes a profit from currency itself, instead of making it from the process which currency was meant to serve. Their common characteristic is obviously their sordid avarice.

If I give you a good wine, you will see how it tastes and after you ask where it comes from.

A world where nothing is had for nothing.

If I have any justification for having lived it's simply, I'm nothing but faults, failures and so on, but I have tried to make a good pair of shoes. There's some value in that.

Don't be seduced into thinking that that which does not make a profit is without value.

The only thing you got in this world is what you can sell. And the funny thing is that you're a salesman, and you don't know that.

Hold on to me: Someday I may be quite valuable.

Why is my autograph so little in demand, except on checks?

My time is far too valuable for me to spend any of it trying to improve myself.

Unfortunately, it's possible to be able to do something extremely well that nobody ever wants done.

If we can't, as artists, improve on real life, we should put down our pencils and go bake bread.

The earth only has so much bounty to offer and inventing ever larger and more notional prices for that bounty does not change its real value.

There is no need to worry about mere size. We do not necessarily respect a fat man more than a thin man. Sir Isaac Newton was very much smaller than a hippopotamus, but we do not on that account value him less.

Obsolescence and death, the reign of the archaic, the abandoned, and the corny: Really, if you saw Windows 3.0 on the sidewalk outside the building, would you bend over and pick it up?!?

All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value.

A day wasted on others is not wasted on one's self.

You play the hand you're dealt. I think the game's worthwhile.

Beauty like hers is genius.

A great many people now reading and writing would be better employed keeping rabbits.

Mere parsimony is not economy. Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy.

A friend is worth all hazards we can run.

Every man should have a college education in order to show him how little the thing is really worth.

An ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness.

We work to become, not to acquire.

When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die.

Human resources are the most valuable assets the world has. They are all needed desperately.

I took one Draught of Life - I'll tell you what I paid - Precisely an existence - The market price, they said.

Would people applaud me if I was a good plumber?

The possible ranks higher than the actual.

We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color.

Necessity, weight, and value are three concepts inextricably bound: only necessity is heavy, and only what is heavy has value.

Inflation is the one form of taxation that can be imposed without legislation.

If they can make penicillin out of mouldy bread, they can sure make something out of you.

Philosophy can bake no bread; but she can procure for us God, Freedom, Immortality. Which, then, is more practical, Philosophy or Economy?

A few honest men are better than numbers.

I looked for perfection, and I found something better.

It isn't worth it. No money is worth this... [walks out]

A man is sorry to be honest for nothing.

Why should I go into details, we have nothing that is not perishable except what our hearts and our intellects endows us with.

What I want to know is this: Are the stars gold paper or is the gold paper stars?

I'm like a good cheese. I'm just getting mouldy enough to be interesting.

When stocks are attractive, you buy them. Sure, they can go lower. I've bought stocks at $12 that went to $2, but then they later went to $30. You just don't know when you can find the bottom.

The tools which would teach men their own use would be beyond price.

Life is given to us, we earn it by giving it.

Time is a wealth of change, but the clock in its parody makes it mere change and no wealth.

The climate of our culture is changing. Under these new rains, new suns, small things grow great, and what was great grows small; whole species disappear and are replaced.

And the world said, Child, you will not be missed. You are cheaper than a wrench, your back is a road; Your death is a table in a book. You had our wit, our heart was sealed to you: Man is the judgment of the world.

He lives to build, not boast, a generous race; No tenth transmitter of a foolish face.

Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine.

The hallmark of the minor artist is to be obsessed with style as an end in itself.

Occasionally an unsuspecting innocent will stumble into a movie like this and send me an anguished postcard, asking how I could possibly give a favorable review to such trash. My stock response is Ebert's Law, which reads: A movie is not about what it is about. It is about how it is about it.

We will never recognize the true value of our own lives until we affirm the value in the life of others.

Nothing is little to him that feels it with great sensibility.

You talk about making this article cheaper by reducing its price in the market from 8 d. to 6 d. But suppose, in so doing, you have rendered your country weaker against a foreign foe; suppose you have demoralized thousands of your fellow-countrymen, and have sown discontent between one class of society and another, your article is tolerably dear, I take it, after all.

I never rush myself. See, they can't start the game without me.

Has a philosopher like you failed to discover that our country is more to be valued and higher and holier far than mother or father or any ancestor, and more to be regarded in the eyes of the gods and of men of understanding?

The value of life can be measured by how many times your soul has been deeply stirred.

I am glad that the life of pandas is so dull by human standards, for our efforts at conservation have little moral value if we preserve creatures only as human ornaments; I shall be impressed when we show solicitude for warty toads and slithering worms.

I believe that sex is the most beautiful, natural, and wholesome thing that money can buy.

Why pay a dollar for a bookmark? Why not use the dollar for a bookmark?

It behooves every man to remember that the work of the critic is of altogether secondary importance, and that, in the end, progress is accomplished by the man who does things.

No man is worth his salt who is not ready at all times to risk his well-being, to risk his body, to risk his life, in a great cause.

No pressure, no diamonds.

Not all that tempts your wandering eyes And heedless hearts, is lawful prize; Nor all that glisters gold.

Well, there's one thing to be said for money. It can make you rich.

It's the wanting to know that makes us matter.

If an idea's worth having once, it's worth having twice.

It is better of course to know useless things than to know nothing.

Good things, when short, are twice as good.

If I could patent 'being real', I think I could own that.

A good picture is equivalent to a good deed.

I can't change the fact that my paintings don't sell. But the time will come when people will recognize that they are worth more than the value of the paints used in the picture.

In every particular state of the world, those nations which are strongest tend to prevail over the others; and in certain marked peculiarities the strongest tend to be the best.

We know enough of our own history by now to be aware that people exploit what they have merely concluded to be of value, but they defend what they love. To defend what we love we need a particularizing language, for we love what we particularly know.

When we look back, the only things we cherish are those which in some way met our original want; the desire which formed in us in early youth, undirected, and of its own accord.

A work-room should be like an old shoe; no matter how shabby, it's better than a new one.

Words alone are certain good.

If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate: The 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' is worth any number of old ladies.

Men are generally more careful of the breed of their horses and dogs than of their children.

Every great and original writer, in proportion as he is great and original, must himself create the taste by which he is to be relished.

What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet.

The art of advertisement, after the American manner, has introduced into all our life such a lavish use of superlatives, that no standard of value whatever is intact.

A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore.

Why buy good luggage? You only use it when you travel.

A reflective, contented mind is the best possession.

What we buy belongs to us only when the price is forgotten.

The only real valuable thing is intuition. The intellect has little to do on the road to discovery.