Quotes about worth

A collection of quotes on the topic of worth, life, doing, thing.

Quotes about worth

José Baroja photo

“If there is such a thing as the eternal return that Nietzsche proposed, I hope to do what is necessary to make it worth repeating every day to infinity.”

José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor

Source: Interview. Torreblanca, M. E. Entrevista al escritor José Baroja. Fondo de Cultura Económica. https://www.fondodeculturaeconomica.com/Noticia/706

José Baroja photo
Lil Peep photo
Tom Hiddleston photo
Marek Żukow-Karczewski photo
Johnny Depp photo
Bob Marley photo
Bob Marley photo

“If she's amazing, she won't be easy. If she's easy, she won't be amazing. If she's worth it, you wont give up. If you give up, you're not worthy…. Truth is, everybody is going to hurt you; you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for.”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

Variant: If she's amazing, she won't be easy. If she's easy, she won't be amazing. If she's worth it, you wont give up. If you give up, you're not worthy. ... Truth is, everybody is going to hurt you; you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for.
Source: Guitar Chord Songbook - Bob Marley

Louis Zamperini photo

“One moment of pain is worth a lifetime of glory.”

Louis Zamperini (1917–2014) Italian-American middle distance runner
Robert Baden-Powell photo

“The most worth-while thing is to try to put happiness into the lives of others.”

Robert Baden-Powell (1857–1941) lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, founder and Chief Scout of the Scout Movement

Letter (September 1940)

Vincent Van Gogh photo
Hesiod photo
George Eliot photo

“A friend is one to whom one may pour out the contents of one's heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that gentle hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

Thiis was published without credit in The Best Loved Poems of the American People (1936) with the title "Friendship", and since that time has sometimes been misattributed http://www.geonius.com/eliot/quotes.html to Eliot; it is actually an adaptation of lines by Dinah Craik, in A Life for a Life (1859):
Misattributed
Context: Oh, the comfort —
the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person —
having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words,
but pouring them all right out,
just as they are,
chaff and grain together;
certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them,
keep what is worth keeping,
and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.

Jane Goodall photo
Emil M. Cioran photo

“It's not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late.”

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)
Source: The Trouble with Being Born

Bob Marley photo
Billie Eilish photo
Joyce Meyer photo
Robert Baden-Powell photo

“A week of camp life is worth six months of theoretical teaching in the meeting room.”

Robert Baden-Powell (1857–1941) lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, founder and Chief Scout of the Scout Movement
Miguel de Cervantes photo

“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”

Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright

Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part I, Book IV, Ch. 4.

Joseph Stalin photo

“We are not the kind of people who, when the word "anarchism" is mentioned, turn away contemptuously and say with a supercilious wave of the hand: "Why waste time on that, it's not worth talking about!"”

Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Anarchism or Socialism (1906)
Context: We are not the kind of people who, when the word "anarchism" is mentioned, turn away contemptuously and say with a supercilious wave of the hand: "Why waste time on that, it's not worth talking about!" We think that such cheap "criticism" is undignified and useless.
Nor are we the kind of people who console themselves with the thought that the Anarchists "have no masses behind them and, therefore, are not so dangerous." It is not who has a larger or smaller "mass" following today, but the essence of the doctrine that matters. If the "doctrine" of the Anarchists expresses the truth, then it goes without saying that it will certainly hew a path for itself and will rally the masses around itself. If, however, it is unsound and built up on a false foundation, it will not last long and will remain suspended in mid-air. But the unsoundness of anarchism must be proved.
Some people believe that Marxism and anarchism are based on the same principles and that the disagreements between them concern only tactics, so that, in the opinion of these people, no distinction whatsoever can be drawn between these two trends.
This is a great mistake.
We believe that the Anarchists are real enemies of Marxism. Accordingly, we also hold that a real struggle must be waged against real enemies.

Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
William Shakespeare photo
Leonard Cohen photo
Hunter S. Thompson photo
Dwight D. Eisenhower photo

“No man is worth your tears, but once you find one that is, he won't make you cry.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)
Arthur Schopenhauer photo

“Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things.”

Meistens belehrt uns erst der Verlust über den Wert der Dinge.
Source: Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

Arthur C. Clarke photo
George Orwell photo
Marcus Tullius Cicero photo

“To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?”
Nescire autem quid ante quam natus sis acciderit, id est semper esse puerum. Quid enim est aetas hominis, nisi ea memoria rerum veterum cum superiorum aetate contexitur? ([http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/cicero/orator.shtml#120 120])

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Variant translation: To be ignorant of the past is to be forever a child.
Chapter XXXIV, section 120
Orator Ad M. Brutum (46 BC)
Variant: Not to know what happened before you were born is to be a child forever. For what is the time of a man, except it be interwoven with that memory of ancient things of a superior age?

Jordan Peterson photo

“Mary is the great mother. She is the mother. That's what Mary is. Whether she existed or not, is not the point. She exists at least as a hyper-reality. She exists as the mother. What's the sacrifice of the mother? That's easy: if you're a mother who's worth her salt, you offer your son to be destroyed by the world. That's what you do. And that's what's going to happen. He's going to be born, he's going to suffer, he's going to have his trouble in life, he's going to have his illnesses, he's going to face his failures and catastrophes, and he's going to die. That's what's going to happen, and if you're awake you know that, and then you say, 'well, perhaps he will live in a way that will justify that.' And then you try to have that happen. And that's what makes you worthy of a statue like [The Pieta]. 'Is it right to bring a baby into this terrible world?' Well, every woman asks herself that question. Some say no, and they have their reasons. Mary answers 'yes' voluntarily. Mary is the archetype of the woman who answers yes to life voluntarily. Not because she is blind. She knows what's going to happen. So, she's the archetypal representation of the woman who says yes to life knowing full well what life is. She's not naive. She's not someone who got pregnant in the backseat of a 1957 Chevy during one night of half-drunk idiocy. Not that. She does so consciously. Consciously, knowing what's to come. And then she allows it to happen, which is a testament to mothers.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Bible Series V: Cain and Abel: The Hostile Brothers
Concepts

Francisco Palau photo
Morgan Freeman photo

“We have 7 billion people on this planet. It’s not that there’s not enough room on this planet for 7 billion people, it’s that the energy needs for 7 billion people are 7 billion people’s worth of energy needs, as opposed to, say, 2 billion. Imagine how much pollution would be in the air and the oceans if there were only 2 billion people putting it in? So yeah, we’re already overpopulated.”

Morgan Freeman (1937) American actor, film director, and narrator

Source: [Stern, Marlow, Janbuary 28, 2014, Morgan Freeman on God, Satan, and How the Human Race Has ‘Become A Parasite’, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/morgan-freeman-kerry-washington-celebrate-oscars-science-at-breakthrough-prize-ceremony-1064160, The Daily Beast, New York, December 4, 2017]

George Eliot photo

“Oh, the comfort —
the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person —
having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words,
but pouring them all right out,
just as they are,
chaff and grain together;
certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them,
keep what is worth keeping,
and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

Thiis was published without credit in The Best Loved Poems of the American People (1936) with the title "Friendship", and since that time has sometimes been misattributed http://www.geonius.com/eliot/quotes.html to Eliot; it is actually an adaptation of lines by Dinah Craik, in A Life for a Life (1859):
Oh, the comfort — the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person — having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.
Misattributed

Nora Roberts photo

“A woman who can threaten your life before breakfast is the only sort of woman worth having.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

Source: Black Hills

John Ruskin photo

“A book worth reading is worth owning.”

John Ruskin (1819–1900) English writer and art critic

Variant: If a book is worth reading, it is worth buying.

Johnny Depp photo
C.G. Jung photo
Elvis Presley photo

“Do something worth remembering.”

Elvis Presley (1935–1977) American singer and actor
Brandon Sanderson photo
Hunter S. Thompson photo

“Anything worth doing, is worth doing right.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author
Andrei Tarkovsky photo
Bette Davis photo
Leonard Ravenhill photo

“Are the things you are living for worth Christ dying for?”

Leonard Ravenhill (1907–1994) British writer

Source: Final message to the church (n. d.)

Terence McKenna photo
Zig Ziglar photo

“Make today worth remembering.”

Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American motivational speaker
Christopher Paolini photo
Carlos Ruiz Zafón photo
Arthur Conan Doyle photo
Ernesto Che Guevara photo
George Orwell photo
Christopher Paolini photo
Oscar Wilde photo

“Education is an admirable thing. But it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

A Few Maxims for the Instruction of the Over-Educated (1894)

Pablo Picasso photo

“Anything new, anything worth doing, can't be recognized.”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer
Vincent Van Gogh photo
F. Scott Fitzgerald photo
Lewis Carroll photo

“One of the deep secrets of life is that all that is really worth the doing is what we do for others.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

This is a paraphrase of statement in a thank you note from Carroll to a childhood friend, the actress Ellen Terry, published in Ellen Terry, Player in Her Time (1997), p. 126 https://books.google.com/books?id=2PkzZ9KaRlwC&lpg=PA126&vq=%22do%20for%20others%22&pg=PA126#v=snippet&q=%22do%20for%20others%22&f=fals by Nina Auerbach: "... and so you have found out that secret — one of the deep secrets of Life — that all, that is really worth the doing, is what we do for others?"
Disputed

Shahrukh Khan photo
Pierre Beaumarchais photo

“That which is not worth speaking they sing.”

Ce qui ne vaut pas la peine d'être dit, on le chante.
Act I, scene i. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 712-13.
Le Barbier de Séville (1773)

George Orwell photo
Mark Twain photo

“It is not worth while to try to keep history from repeating itself, for man's character will always make the preventing of the repetitions impossible.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Mark Twain in Eruption: Hitherto Unpublished Pages About Men and Events (1940) edited by Bernard DeVoto

Taylor Swift photo
Avril Lavigne photo
Confucius photo

“A hundred girls aren't worth a single testicle.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Attributed on the internet; a popular Vietnamese saying
Misattributed, Not Chinese

Bruce Willis photo

“This is the war on terrorism; it's worth fighting for.”

Bruce Willis (1955) American actor, producer, and musician

Bruce Willis during a visit to the 101st Airborne Division in northern Iraq, September 25, 2003. http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Sep2003/n09262003_200309266.html

Socrates photo

“The unexamined life is not worth living for a human being.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

38a
Variant translations:
(More closely) The unexamining life is not worth living for a human being
The life which is unexamined is not worth living.
An unexamined life is not worth living.
The unexamined life is not the life for man.
Life without enquiry is not worth living for a man.<!--Translated by W. H. D. Rouse-->
Plato, Apology

William Makepeace Thackeray photo
George Orwell photo
James Watt photo

“It is not worth my while to manufacture in three countries only; but I can find it very worthwhile to make it for the whole world.”

James Watt (1736–1819) British engineer

Attributed to James Watt in: Joel Mokyr, The lever of riches: Technological creativity and economic progress. Oxford University Press, 1992. p, 245

Douglas Adams photo
George Orwell photo
Socrates photo
José de San Martín photo

“A well-fought defeat is worth more than a casual victory.”

José de San Martín (1778–1850) Argentine general and independence leader

Una derrota peleada vale más que una victoria casual.
100 Masones Su Palabra (2010)

Pierre Joseph Proudhon photo

“I protest against every order with which some authority may feel pleased on the basis of some alleged necessity to over-rule my free will. Laws: We know what they are, and what they are worth! They are spider webs for the rich and mighty, steel chains for the poor and weak, fishing nets in the hands of government.”

Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) French politician, mutualist philosopher, economist, and socialist

"The Authority Principle" in No Gods, No Masters : An Anthology of Anarchism (1980) Daniel Guérin, as translated by Paul Sharkey (1998), p. 90
Context: I stand ready to negotiate, but I want no part of laws: I acknowledge none; I protest against every order with which some authority may feel pleased on the basis of some alleged necessity to over-rule my free will. Laws: We know what they are, and what they are worth! They are spider webs for the rich and mighty, steel chains for the poor and weak, fishing nets in the hands of government.

George Orwell photo

“There were only two things that you were allowed to say, and both of them were palpable lies: as a result, the war produced acres of print but almost nothing worth reading.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"The Prevention of Literature" (1946)
Context: Totalitarianism, however, does not so much promise an age of faith as an age of schizophrenia. A society becomes totalitarian when its structure becomes flagrantly artificial: that is, when its ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to power by force or fraud. Such a society, no matter how long it persists, can never afford to become either tolerant or intellectually stable. It can never permit either the truthful recording of facts or the emotional sincerity that literary creation demands. But to be corrupted by totalitarianism one does not have to live in a totalitarian country. The mere prevalence of certain ideas can spread a kind of poison that makes one subject after another impossible for literary purposes. Wherever there is an enforced orthodoxy — or even two orthodoxies, as often happens — good writing stops. This was well illustrated by the Spanish civil war. To many English intellectuals the war was a deeply moving experience, but not an experience about which they could write sincerely. There were only two things that you were allowed to say, and both of them were palpable lies: as a result, the war produced acres of print but almost nothing worth reading.

Dinah Craik photo

“Oh, the comfort — the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person — having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.”

Dinah Craik (1826–1887) English novelist and poet

A part of this passage appeared in The Best Loved Poems of the American People (1936) with the title "Friendship":
A Life for a Life (1859)
Context: Thus ended our little talk: yet it left a pleasant impression. True, the subject was strange enough; my sisters might have been shocked at it; and at my freedom in asking and giving opinions. But oh! the blessing it is to have a friend to whom one can speak fearlessly on any subject; with whom one's deepest as well as one's most foolish thoughts come out simply and safely. Oh, the comfort — the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person — having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.
Somebody must have done a good deal of the winnowing business this afternoon; for in the course of it I gave him as much nonsense as any reasonable man could stand...

Oliver Wendell Holmes photo

“A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894) Poet, essayist, physician

Source: The Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859), Ch. X.
Context: Poets are never young, in one sense. Their delicate ear hears the far-off whispers of eternity, which coarser souls must travel towards for scores of years before their dull sense is touched by them. A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience.

G. K. Chesterton photo

“I do not ask them to assume the worth of my creed or any creed; and I could wish they did not so often ask me to assume the worth of their worthless, poisonous plutocratic modern society.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

The Superstition of Divorce (1920)
Context: I do not ask them to assume the worth of my creed or any creed; and I could wish they did not so often ask me to assume the worth of their worthless, poisonous plutocratic modern society. But if it could be shown, as I think it can, that a long historical view and a patient political experience can at last accumulate solid scientific evidence of the vital need of such a vow, then I can conceive no more tremendous tribute than this, to any faith, which made a flaming affirmation from the darkest beginnings, of what the latest enlightenment can only slowly discover in the end.

Hilaire Belloc photo

“There's nothing worth the wear of winning,
But laughter and the love of friends.”

Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) writer

"Dedicatory Ode", stanza 22
Verses (1910)
Context: From quiet homes and first beginning,
Out to the undiscovered ends,
There's nothing worth the wear of winning,
But laughter and the love of friends.

Barack Obama photo

“Every one of us is equal. Every one of us has worth. Every one of us matters. And when we respect the freedom of others -- no matter the color of their skin, or how they pray or who they are or who they love -- we are all more free. Your dignity depends on my dignity, and my dignity depends on yours.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Remarks to the People of Africa (July 2015)
Context: Every one of us is equal. Every one of us has worth. Every one of us matters. And when we respect the freedom of others -- no matter the color of their skin, or how they pray or who they are or who they love -- we are all more free. Your dignity depends on my dignity, and my dignity depends on yours. Imagine if everyone had that spirit in their hearts. Imagine if governments operated that way. Just imagine what the world could look like -- the future that we could bequeath these young people.

George Orwell photo

“A joke worth laughing at always has an idea behind it, and usually a subversive idea. Dickens is able to go on being funny because he is in revolt against authority, and authority is always there to be laughed at.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"Charles Dickens" (1939)
Context: The thing that drove Dickens forward into a form of art for which he was not really suited, and at the same time caused us to remember him, was simply the fact that he was a moralist, the consciousness of ‘having something to say’. He is always preaching a sermon, and that is the final secret of his inventiveness. For you can only create if you can care. Types like Squeers and Micawber could not have been produced by a hack writer looking for something to be funny about. A joke worth laughing at always has an idea behind it, and usually a subversive idea. Dickens is able to go on being funny because he is in revolt against authority, and authority is always there to be laughed at.

Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood photo

“Thenceforth, the effort to abolish war seemed to me, and still seems to me, the only political object worth while.”

Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood (1864–1958) lawyer, politician and diplomat in the United Kingdom

A Great Experiment (1941), p. 189
Context: The truth is, I was never a very good Party man. Probably but for the War of 1914, I should have gone on fairly comfortably as a Conservative official. But those four years burnt into me the insufferable conditions of international relations which made war the acknowledged method — indeed, the only fully authorized method — of settling international disputes. Thenceforth, the effort to abolish war seemed to me, and still seems to me, the only political object worth while.

Sandra Bullock photo
George Orwell photo
Attila photo

“Foresight, energy, commitment to a single goal, the choice and use of Huns, and commitment to a goal worth the effort become the characteristics of an excellent commander.”

Attila (406–453) King of the Hunnic Empire

Turkish Wikipedia
https://quotestats.com/topic/attila-hun-quotes/

C.G. Jung photo

“The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology
Keanu Reeves photo

“Your Value Doesn't Decrease Based On Someone's Inability To See Your Worth.”

Keanu Reeves (1964) Canadian actor, director, producer and musician

https://successtutorship.com/10-famous-keanu-reeves-quotes/

Babe Ruth photo

“You can have the nine greatest individual ball players in the world, but if they don't play together the club won't be worth a dime.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

"Chapter X," Babe Ruth's Own Book of Baseball (1928), p. 135; reprinted as "Babe Ruth's Own Story — Chapter X: Great Individual Stars Worth Little Without Team Play; Signs and How They Operate, https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=c0sbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=AUsEAAAAIBAJ&pg=4554%2C1154246 The Pittsburgh Press (January 18, 1929), p. 45
Context: Baseball always has been and always will be a game demanding team play. You can have the nine greatest individual ball players in the world, but if they don't play together the club won't be worth a dime.