38
Essays in Idleness (1967 Columbia University Press, Trns: Donald Keene)
“There is nothing worth living for, unless it is worth dying for.”
Source: Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
Source: Seven Great Statesmen in the Warfare of Humanity with Unreason (1915), p. 59
Context: He [Grotius] avoided another danger as serious as his precocity had been. He steered clear of the quicksands of useless scholarship, which had engulfed so many strong men of his time. The zeal of learned men in that period was largely given to knowing things not worth knowing, to discussing things not worth discussing, to proving things not worth proving. Grotius seemed plunging on, with all sails set, into these quicksands; but again his good sense and sober judgment saved him: he decided to bring himself into the current of active life flowing through his land and time, and with this purpose he gave himself to the broad and thorough study of jurisprudence.
“'Tis a world
Where all is bought, and nothing's worth the price.”
Source: Fortunatus the Pessimist (1892), Fortunatus in Act I, sc. ii; p. 17.
“Unless we have something worth dying for, Atretes, we've nothing worth living for.”
Source: A Voice in the Wind
"Dead Men’s Dialogue"
Dreamtigers (1960)
“Better say nothing at all. Language is worth a thousand pounds a word!”
Source: Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There
“In the absence of love, there is nothing worth fighting for.”
Quoted in M. Kumar, Dictionary of Quotations Page 136 http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=N0VKD37eY94C&pg=PA136&dq=%22In+the+absence+of+love,+there+is+nothing+worth+fighting+for%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=7ns3T6XuNI6n8gOnpaWqAg&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22In%20the%20absence%20of%20love%2C%20there%20is%20nothing%20worth%20fighting%20for%22&f=false
“Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well.”
The French attribute this to the painter Nicolas Poussin (born 15 June 1594) "Ce qui vaut la peine d'être fait vaut la peine d'être bien fait"
Disputed
