Quotes about value
page 15

Henri Lefebvre photo
Richard Henry Lee photo

“The military forces of a free country may be considered under three general descriptions — 1. The militia. 2. the navy — and 3. the regular troops — and the whole ought ever to be, and understood to be, in strict subordination to the civil authority; and that regular troops, and select corps, ought not to be kept up without evident necessity. Stipulations in the constitution to this effect, are perhaps, too general to be of much service, except merely to impress on the minds of the people and soldiery, that the military ought ever to be subject to the civil authority, &c. But particular attention, and many more definite stipulations, are highly necessary to render the military safe, and yet useful in a free government; and in a federal republic, where the people meet in distinct assemblies, many stipulations are necessary to keep a part from transgressing, which would be unnecessary checks against the whole met in one legislature, in one entire government. — A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves, and render regular troops in a great measure unnecessary. The powers to form and arm the militia, to appoint their officers, and to command their services, are very important; nor ought they in a confederated republic to be lodged, solely, in any one member of the government. First, the constitution ought to secure a genuine and guard against a select militia, by providing that the militia shall always be kept well organized, armed, and disciplined, and include, according to the past and general usuage of the states, all men capable of bearing arms; and that all regulations tending to render this general militia useless and defenceless, by establishing select corps of militia, or distinct bodies of military men, not having permanent interests and attachments in the community to be avoided. I am persuaded, I need not multiply words to convince you of the value and solidity of this principle, as it respects general liberty, and the duration of a free and mild government: having this principle well fixed by the constitution, then the federal head may prescribe a general uniform plan, on which the respective states shall form and train the militia, appoint their officers and solely manage them, except when called into the service of the union, and when called into that service, they may be commanded and governed by the union. This arrangement combines energy and safety in it; it places the sword in the hands of the solid interest of the community, and not in the hands of men destitute of property, of principle, or of attachment to the society and government, who often form the select corps of peace or ordinary establishments: by it, the militia are the people, immediately under the management of the state governments, but on a uniform federal plan, and called into the service, command, and government of the union, when necessary for the common defence and general tranquility. But, say gentlemen, the general militia are for the most part employed at home in their private concerns, cannot well be called out, or be depended upon; that we must have a select militia; that is, as I understand it, particular corps or bodies of young men, and of men who have but little to do at home, particularly armed and disciplined in some measure, at the public expence, and always ready to take the field. These corps, not much unlike regular troops, will ever produce an inattention to the general militia; and the consequence has ever been, and always must be, that the substantial men, having families and property, will generally be without arms, without knowing the use of them, and defenceless; whereas, to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them; nor does it follow from this, that all promiscuously must go into actual service on every occasion. The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle; and when we see many men disposed to practice upon it, whenever they can prevail, no wonder true republicans are for carefully guarding against it. As a farther check, it may be proper to add, that the militia of any state shall not remain in the service of the union, beyond a given period, without the express consent of the state legislature.”

Richard Henry Lee (1732–1794) American statesman

Additional Letters From The Federal Farmer, 169 (1788)

Willem de Sitter photo
David Ricardo photo

“I have already expressed my opinion on this subject in treating of rent, and have now only further to add, that rent is a creation of value, as I understand that word, but not a creation of wealth.”

David Ricardo (1772–1823) British political economist, broker and politician

Source: The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1821) (Third Edition), Chapter XXXII, Malthus on Rent, p. 273

Daniel Levitin photo
Roger Raveel photo

“That I started [in the creation of his art] from my immediate environment was extremely important to me. Only the things I knew, with which I was familiar, which I had caught on their reality value, I could approach free of extra-pictorial aesthetics and pale romanticism. Of course the question remained how I - who wanted to involve modern life in my art - could continue to seek my inspiration at Machelen-aan-de-Leie, a village in the countryside, far from the city and the crowds. Where can one sense better the infiltration of modern life than in a village in the countryside? In the city everything gets integrated immediately, you can't see clearly the insulating and contrasting-alienating effect of publicity, the gas-station, the concrete, the car, etc. On the other hand, I keep saying that we must continue to see the grass, the corn and the cows. Not within an animistic unity, but from a mentality that has the courage to approach these things freely and ruthless in our era. What ordinary people make out of life is fascinating me.”

Roger Raveel (1921–2013) painter

Dat ik [met het maken van mijn kunst] vertrok uit mijn onmiddellijke omgeving vond ik uiterst belangrijk. Alleen de dingen die ik kende, waarmee ik vertrouwd was, die ik op hun werkelijkheidswaarde had betrapt konden vrij van extra-picturale esthetiek en van bleek romantisme door mij benaderd worden. De vraag bleef natuurlijk hoe ik, die het moderne leven in mijn kunst wou betrekken, mijn inspiratie kon blijven zoeken te Machelen-aan-de-Leie, een dorp op het platteland, ver van de stad en van de drukte. Waar kan men beter het infiltreren van het moderne leven gewaar worden dan in een dorp op het platteland? In de stad wordt alles onmiddellijk geïntegreerd, ziet men niet zo scherp de isolerende en tevens contrasterend-bevreemdende werking van de publiciteit, het benzinestation, het beton, de auto, enz. Aan de andere kant blijf ik ervan overtuigd dat ook het gras, het koren en de koe nog moeten gezien worden. Niet binnen een animistische eenheid, maar wel vanuit een mentaliteit die vrij en meedogenloos deze dingen in ons tijdperk nog zou durven benaderen. Wat de gewone man van het leven maakt, dat boeit mij.
Quote of Raveel, 1969, in the text 'In gesprek met mezelf' ('In conversation with myself'), in the exhibition-catalog of his exhibition in 'De Hallen' (museum in Haarlem, The Netherlands; as cited by Ludo Bekkers in 'Roger Raveel en zijn keuze uit het Museum voor Schone Kunsten in Gent' http://www.tento.be/sites/default/files/tijdschrift/pdf/OKV1975/Roger%20Raveel%20en%20zijn%20keuze%20uit%20het%20Museum%20voor%20Schone%20Kunsten%20in%20Gent.pdf, Dutch art-magazine 'Openbaar Kunstbezit', Jan/Maart 1975, p. 3-4
1960's

John Maynard Keynes photo

“Bernoulli's real contribution was to coin a word. The word has been translated into English as "utility". It describes this subjective value people place on money.”

William Poundstone (1955) American writer

Part Four, St. Petersburg Wager, Daniel Bernoulli, p. 184
Fortune's Formula (2005)

Cormac McCarthy photo
Matt Ridley photo
Stéphane Mallarmé photo
Adam Smith photo
H.L. Mencken photo

“Against this view, it is still possible to identify some cultural continuities. Kitromilides himself alludes to some of them, when he mentions “inherited forms of cultural expression, such as those associated with the Orthodox liturgical cycle and the images of emperors, the commemoration of Christian kings, the evocation of the Orthodox kingdom and its earthly seat, Constantinople, which is so powerfully communicated in texts such as the Akathist Hymn, sung every year during Lent and forming such an intimate component of Orthodox worship...“ (Kitromilides 1998, 31). There are other lines of Greek continuity. Despite the adoption of a new religion, Christianity, certain traditions, such as a dedication to competitive values, have remained fairly constant, as have the basic forms of the Greek language and the contours of the Greek homeland (though its centre of gravity was subject to change). And John Armstrong has pointed to the “precocious nationalism” that took hold of the Greek population of the Byzantine Empire under the last Palaeologan emperors and that was directed as much against the Catholic Latins as against the Muslim Turks—an expression of medieval Greek national sentiment as well as a harbinger of later Greek nationalism. But again, we may ask: was this Byzantine sentiment a case of purely confessional loyalty or of ethnoreligious nationalism?”

Anthony D. Smith (1939–2016) British academic

See Armstrong 1982, I74—8I cf. Baynes and Moss 1969, 119—27, and Carras 1983.
Source: The Nation in History (2000), p. 42-43.

Aldous Huxley photo
Heather Brooke photo
Pat Conroy photo
David Duke photo
Jean Paul Sartre photo
Vasily Chuikov photo
John Hicks photo

“The standard stream corresponding to Income No. 3 is constant in real terms… We ask… how much he would be receiving if he were getting a standard stream of the same present value as his actual expected receipts. This amount is his income.”

John Hicks (1904–1989) British economist

Source: Value and capital, (1939), p. 184 as cited in: Asheim, Geir B. "Economic analysis of sustainability." Justifying, Characterizing and Indicating Sustainability (2007): 1-15.

Norman Douglas photo

“You can tell the values of a nation by its advertisements.”

South Wind (1917).

Harold Demsetz photo
Robert Morgan photo
Jean de La Bruyère photo
Samuel Butler photo
Narendra Modi photo
Aristophanés photo
Anders Nygren photo
Piero Manzoni photo
Marie-Louise von Franz photo
George Lakoff photo
John Hirst photo
Melanie Phillips photo

“Between 1903 and 1991 the value of the Yankees appreciated at a compound annual rate of 11.4 percent.”

Andrew Zimbalist (1947) American economist

Source: Baseball And Billions - Updated edition - (1992), Chapter 3, Franchise Finances, p. 68.

Ilana Mercer photo

“Self-government, and not imposed government, implies that society, and not The State, is to develop value systems. The State's role is to protect citizens as they go about their business peacefully, living in accordance with their peaceful values.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"Beware The Values Cudgel," http://dailycaller.com/2017/02/03/beware-the-values-cudgel/ The Daily Caller, February 2, 2017
2010s, 2017

William Lane Craig photo
John Hicks photo
Benjamin R. Barber photo
Amartya Sen photo
Wilhelm Liebknecht photo
Francis Turner Palgrave photo
William Pfaff photo

“The moral spectacle of capitalism still offends, as does American capitalism's implacable insistence that the market determine value even in the political, intellectual, and artistic spheres.”

William Pfaff (1928–2015) American journalist

Source: Barbarian Sentiments - How The American Century Ends (1989), Chapter 2, The Challenge of Europe, p. 31

Mao Zedong photo
David Eugene Smith photo
Colin Wilson photo
John Dewey photo
David Rosen photo
Albert Hofmann photo
Sri Aurobindo photo
Mark Manson photo

“Our values are imperfect and incomplete, and to assume that they are perfect and complete is to put us in a dangerously dogmatic mindset that breeds entitlement and avoids responsibility.”

Mark Manson (1984) American writer and blogger

Source: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck (2016), Chapter 6, “You’re Wrong About Everything (But So Am I)” (p. 135)

Maxime Bernier photo

“Trudeau keeps pushing his “diversity is our strength” slogan. Yes, Canada is a huge and diverse country. This diversity is part of us and should be celebrated. But where do we draw the line?
Ethnic, religious, linguistic, sexual and other minorities were unjustly repressed in the past. We’ve done a lot to redress those injustices and give everyone equal rights. Canada is today one of the countries where people have the most freedom to express their identity.
But why should we promote ever more diversity? If anything and everything is Canadian, does being Canadian mean something? Shouldn’t we emphasize our cultural traditions, what we have built and have in common, what makes us different from other cultures and societies?
Having people live among us who reject basic Western values such as freedom, equality, tolerance and openness doesn’t make us strong. People who refuse to integrate into our society and want to live apart in their ghetto don’t make our society strong.
Trudeau’s extreme multiculturalism and cult of diversity will divide us into little tribes that have less and less in common, apart from their dependence on government in Ottawa. These tribes become political clienteles to be bought with taxpayers $ and special privileges.
Cultural balkanisation brings distrust, social conflict, and potentially violence, as we are seeing everywhere. It’s time we reverse this trend before the situation gets worse. More diversity will not be our strength, it will destroy what has made us such a great country.”

Maxime Bernier (1963) Canadian politician

12 August 2018 on Twitter https://twitter.com/MaximeBernier/status/1028800406535716864

Hillary Clinton photo
Hermann Weyl photo
Hendrik Lorentz photo

“I cannot refrain… from expressing my surprise that, according to the report in The Times there should be so much complaint about the difficulty of understanding the new theory. It is evident that Einstein's little book "About the Special and the General Theory of Relativity in Plain Terms," did not find its way into England during wartime. Any one reading it will, in my opinion, come to the conclusion that the basic ideas of the theory are really clear and simple; it is only to be regretted that it was impossible to avoid clothing them in pretty involved mathematical terms, but we must not worry about that. …
The Newtonian theory remains in its full value as the first great step, without which one cannot imagine the development of astronomy and without which the second step, that has now been made, would hardly have been possible. It remains, moreover, as the first, and in most cases, sufficient, approximation. It is true that, according to Einstein's theory, because it leaves us entirely free as to the way in which we wish to represent the phenomena, we can imagine an idea of the solar system in which the planets follow paths of peculiar form and the rays of light shine along sharply bent lines—think of a twisted and distorted planetarium—but in every case where we apply it to concrete questions we shall so arrange it that the planets describe almost exact ellipses and the rays of light almost straight lines.
It is not necessary to give up entirely even the ether. …according to the Einstein theory, gravitation itself does not spread instantaneously, but with a velocity that at the first estimate may be compared with that of light. …In my opinion it is not impossible that in the future this road, indeed abandoned at present, will once more be followed with good results, if only because it can lead to the thinking out of new experimental tests. Einstein's theory need not keep us from so doing; only the ideas about the ether must accord with it.”

Hendrik Lorentz (1853–1928) Dutch physicist

Theory of Relativity: A Concise Statement (1920)

Thomas Fuller (writer) photo

“2801. If you would know the value of a Ducat, try to borrow one.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Compare Poor Richard's Almanack (1754) : If you'd know the Value of Money, go and borrow some.
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

David Harvey photo

“When money functions as measure of value it must truly represent the values it helps to circulate.”

David Harvey (1935) British anthropologist

Source: The Limits To Capital (2006 VERSO Edition), Chapter 10, Finance Capital And Its Contradictions, p. 293

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay photo

“I have travelled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in the country, such high moral values, people of such caliber, that I do not think we would conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self esteem, their native culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation.”

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–1859) British historian and Whig politician

This quotation is commonly said to have been spoken by Macaulay during a speech to the British Parliament in 1835. Since Macaulay was in India at the time, it is more likely to have come from his Minute on Indian Education http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00generallinks/macaulay/txt_minute_education_1835.html. However, these words do not appear in that text. According to Koenraad Elst http://koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/articles/hinduism/macaulay.html, these words were printed in The Awakening Ray, Vol. 4, No. 5, published by the Gnostic Center, preceded by: "His words were to the effect." Burjor Avari cites this misattribution as an example of "tampering with historical evidence" in India: The Ancient Past ISBN 9780415356169, pp. 19–20), writes: "No proof of this statement has been found in any of the volumes containing the writings and speeches of Macaulay. In a journal in which the extract appeared, the writer did not reproduce the exact wording of the Minutes, but merely paraphrased them, using the qualifying phrase: ‘His words were to the effect.:’ This is extremely mischievous, as numerous interpretations can be drawn from the Minutes." For a full discussion, see Koenraad Elst, The Argumentative Hindu (2012) Chapter 3
Misattributed

Georges Braque photo
Simone de Beauvoir photo

“What has value in their eyes is never what is done for them; it's what they do for themselves.”

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist

Source: All Men are Mortal (1946), p. 315

William Ewart Gladstone photo

“The Welsh made a very good and a very hard fight against the English in self-defence, and what was the consequence? That the English were obliged to surround your territory with great castles; and the effect of this has been that, as far as I can reckon, more by far than one-half of the great remains of the castles in the whole island south of the Tweed are castles that surround Wales. That shows that Wales was inhabited by men, and by men who valued and were disposed to struggle for their liberties.”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the Eisteddfod in Wrexham (8 September 1888), quoted in A. W. Hutton and H. J. Cohen (eds.), The Speeches of The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone on Home Rule, Criminal Law, Welsh and Irish Nationality, National Debt and the Queen's Reign. 1888–1891 (London: Methuen, 1902), p. 61.
1880s

Aung San Suu Kyi photo
Paul Keating photo
Margaret Thatcher photo

“Children who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to Conservative Party Conference (9 October 1987) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=106941
Third term as Prime Minister

Jacoba van Heemskerck photo

“.. I am so often showing my work in Germany that I belong to the German moderns... I openly want to confess you that I don't value the new painting in my home country very much. That is why I don't have a lot of acquaintances among the painters. Everything here is so little progressive. People's life is to easy here. It is very difficult to keep wide-awake since all are sleeping here. I feel much more at home in Germany.”

Jacoba van Heemskerck (1876–1923) Dutch painter

translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
version in Dutch / citaat van Jacoba van Heemskerck, in het Nederlands vertaald: ..ik ben zo vaak met mijn werk in Duitsland dat ik helemaal tot de Duitse modernen behoor.. .Ik wil u openlijk bekennen dat ik de nieuwe schilderkunst in mijn vaderland niet erg hoog aansla. Daarom heb ik ook niet erg veel kennissen onder de schilders. Alles is hier zo weinig vooruitstrevend. De mensen herbben het veel te goed. Het is erg moeilijk wakker te blijven aangezien allen hier slapen. In Duitsland voel ik me veel meer thuis.
Quote of Jacoba van Heemskerck, in a letter of June 1921 to prof de:Hans Hildebrandt, Stuttgart Germany; as cited in Jacoba van Heemskerck van Beest, 1876 – 1923: schilderes uit roeping, A. H. Huussen jr. (ed. Marleen Blokhuis), (ISBN: 90-400-9064-5Waanders, Zwolle, 2005, p. 179
1920's

Ramsay MacDonald photo
Ralph Ellison photo

“Some people are your relatives but others are your ancestors, and you choose the ones you want to have as ancestors. You create yourself out of those values.”

Ralph Ellison (1914–1994) American novelist, literary critic, scholar and writer

Time Magazine (27 March 1964).

Harry E. Soyster photo

“Experienced military and intelligence professionals know that torture, in addition to being illegal and immoral, is an unreliable means of extracting information from prisoners. Much is being made of former CIA official John Kiriakou's statement that waterboarding "broke" a high-value terrorist involved in the 9/11 plot. There are always those who, whether out of fear or inexperience, rush to push the panic button instead of relying on what we know works best and most reliably in these situations. I would caution those who would rely on this example. It is far from clear that the information obtained from this prisoner through illegal means could not have been obtained through lawful methods. The FBI was getting good intelligence from this prisoner before the CIA took over. And there are numerous examples of cases where relying on information obtained through torture has disastrous consequences. The reality is that use of torture produces inconsistent results that are an unreliable basis for action and policy. The overwhelming consensus of intelligence professionals is that torture produces unreliable information. And the overwhelming consensus of senior military leaders is that resort to torture is dishonorable. Use of such primitive methods actually puts our own troops and our nation at risk.”

Harry E. Soyster (1935) Recipient of the Purple Heart medal

"Former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency: Torture Produces Unreliable Information" http://web.archive.org/web/20070629145037/http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/blog/torture/2007/12/former-director-of-defense-intelligence.html, Human Rights First (2007-12-11)

Robert Lighthizer photo
Fred Polak photo

“Values, means and ends… [that drive this process in current societies; mean that we now] stagger under the double load of not only having to construct (his) own future but having to create the values that will determine its design.”

Fred Polak (1907–1985) Dutch futurologist

Source: The Image of the Future, 1973, p. 9 as cited in: Rowena Morrow (2006) "Hope, entrepreneurship and foresight". In: Regional frontiers of entrepreneurship research

Henry Adams photo
Edith Stein photo
Joan Robinson photo
Patrick Buchanan photo
Bob Dylan photo

“Greed and lust I can understand, but I can't understand the values of definition and confinement. Definition destroys. Besides, there's nothing definite in this world.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Neil Hickey TV Guide interview http://www.punkhart.com/dylan/interviews/sep_1976.html (11 September 1976)

James Comey photo
William James photo
Zygmunt Bauman photo
Peter Sloterdijk photo
Jill Stein photo

“People are told over and over, "Don't vote your values. Vote your fears." But what we got was everything we were afraid of.”

Jill Stein (1950) American politician and physician

"The Two-Party System Is Killing Democracy," May 23, 2016 http://www.facebook.com/ajplusenglish/videos/735052996636210/

Jimmy Carter photo
Stephen Baxter photo

“He set no great value on money, or, perhaps, to speak properly, he set on it no more than its true value.”

Stephen Baxter (1957) author

Source: Ages in Chaos (2003), Chapter 8, “A cursed country where one has to shape everything out of a block” (p. 68)

Mark Hertling photo