Quotes about worth
page 14

“What was life worth, anyway, if you had to sit around remembering not to mention this, that, and the other thing because someone else might be upset?”

Fritz Leiber book Conjure Wife

Source: Conjure Wife (1953), Chapter 11 (p. 116).

Life

“The notion of "intricate and beautiful complexities" is almost an oxymoron. Unix programmers vie with each other for "simple and beautiful" honors — a point that's implicit in these rules, but is well worth making overt.”

Doug McIlroy (1932) American computer scientist, mathematician, engineer, and programmer

Doug McIlroy (2003). The Art of Unix Programming: Basics of the Unix Philosophy http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/taoup/html/ch01s06.html

Beauty

“They [Americans] have something worth defending…they need to defend it properly from the foe that most people are afraid even to name. How can you possibly fight an enemy when you're afraid to identify him?”

Robert Spencer (1962) American author and blogger

Robert Spencer talking about identifying Islamic extremists, Michelle interviews Robert Spencer about Religion of Peace: Why Christianity is and Islam Isn’t, 2007-08-13 http://hotair.com/archives/2007/08/13/new-vent-michelle-interviews-robert-spencer-about-religion-of-peace-why-christianity-is-and-islam-isnt/,

People, Fight

“Time is a jewel more worth than a world. Time is not yours to dispose of as you please; it is a glorious talent that men must be accountable for as well as any other talent.”

Thomas Brooks (1608–1680) English Puritan

The Hypocrite Detected, Anatomized

Men, World, Time

““What more could you need?”
I smiled in self-mockery. “Reassurance, I suppose.”
“That must come from your own judgment, from your own testing of your conscience. It is the only kind of reassurance worth having, as I’m sure you would agree.””

Michael Moorcock book The War Hound and the World's Pain

Source: The War Hound and the World's Pain (1981), Chapter 10 (p. 112)

Smile

“If the institutions of parliamentary democracy are worth preserving, the duty to explain them to the people they are meant to serve becomes vitally important.”

John Allen Fraser (1931) Canadian politician

Afterword, p. 174
The House Of Commons At Work (1993)

People, Democracy

“A gram of experience is worth a ton of theory.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

Saturday Review (1859)
1850s

“Many feminists have been grieved or aggrieved by The Left Hand of Darkness because the androgynes in it are called ‘he’ throughout. In the third person singular, the English generic pronoun is the same as the masculine pronoun. A fact worth reflecting upon. And it’s a trap, with no way out, because the exclusion of the feminine (she) and the neuter (it) from the generic/masculine (he) makes the use of either of them more specific, more unjust, as it were, than the use of ‘he.’ And I find made-up pronouns, ‘te’ and ‘heshe’ and so on, dreary and annoying.”

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

Introduction to the story “Winter‘s King” p. 85
Short fiction, The Wind’s Twelve Quarters (1975)

Way, Personality

“If evolution was worth its salt, it should've evolved something better than "survival of the fittest." I think a better idea would be "survival of the wittiest." At least, that way, creatures that didn't survive could've died laughing.”

Lily Tomlin (1939) American actress, comedian, writer, and producer

As "Trudy"
Contributions of Jane Wagner, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1985)

Way, Idea, Thinking

“Our task is not the training of interpreters, nor the indulgence of exotic tastes, nor the revelation of some arcane Truth which the Orient possesses but we do not, nor the mastery of a sterile Asiatic scholasticism, but literature. If universities are not to teach language by means of literature—by means of books which are intrinsically worth-while reading, I for one do not want to be a university teacher.”

David Hawkes (sinologist) (1923–2009) British sinologist

Source: Inaugural Lecture, Oxford, 1961, p. 27

Truth, Books, Literature, Teachers

“Early on, presenter Mark Evans observes that a snake is essentially just "one massive tube with a head at the end", which, coincidentally, is also how he might describe his genitals to an audience of blind women in a hypothetical situation I've just invented in which hen nights for the visually impaired are held in special strip clubs where naked men describe their bodies in time to disco music. For what it's worth, I don't know what I'm going on about, either”

Charlie Brooker (1971) journalist, broadcaster and writer from England

Discussing Inside Nature's Giants 12 jUNE 2010 http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2010/jun/12/charlie-brooker-screen-burn <br class="br">Guardian columns, Screen Burn

Women, Men, Music, Time

“This is just a stopping-off point for me but I'll be stopping long enough to make it worth my while finding what people call 'someone to love.”

Javier Marías (1951) Spanish writer

Para mí este territorio es territorio de paso, pero se trata de un paso lo bastante dilatado para que deba procurarme lo que se llama un amor mientras estoy aquí.
Source: Todas las Almas [All Souls] (1989), p. 69

Love, People

“In times of badness, gold is being worth more than beauty.”

Tad Williams (1957) novelist

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, To Green Angel Tower (1993), Part 2, Chapter 15, “A Meandering of Ink” (p. 357).

Beauty, Time

“Those words revealed a selfless dignity which is very rare in politics but common amongst Liberal Democrats. If our losses today are part payment for every family that is more secure because of a job we helped to create, every person with depression who is treated with a compassion they deserve, every child who does a little better in school, every apprentice with a long and rewarding career to look forward to, every gay couple who know that their love is worth no less than anyone else’s and every pensioner with a little more freedom and dignity in retirement then I hope at least our losses can be endured with a little selfless dignity too.”

Nick Clegg (1967) British politician

Resignation speech after losing the 2015 general election UK http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/generalelection/nick-clegg-resigns-the-liberal-democrat-leaders-resignation-speech-text-in-full-10235830.html The Independent (8 May 2015)

Love, School, Family, Hope

“Paradigms can be asked to show their worth, an some of them do not stand up.”

Simon Blackburn (1944) British academic philosopher

Source: Think (1999), Chapter Six, Reasoning, p. 231

“A resuscitated orthodoxy, so pervasive as to be nearly invisible, rules the land. Like any religion worth its salt, it shapes our world in its image, demonizing if necessary, absorbing when possible. Thus has the great sovereign territory of what Nabokov called “unreal estate,” the continent of invisible possessions from time to talent to contentment, been either infantilized, rendered unclean, or translated into the grammar of dollars and cents. Thus has the great wilderness of the inner life been compressed into a median strip by the demands of the “real world,” which of course is anything but.”

Mark Slouka (1958) author

Quitting the paint factory: On the virtues of idleness

Life, World, Religion, Time

“Before I'm through with the big leagues I've got three more ambitions I'd like to realize. […] I'd like to hit 500 home runs before I end my big league career. And I ought to do it easily. I already have 480 in regular season games. […] Another is to play in 10 World Series before I quit. And that's one I think I will realize too. I've already been in nine. […] The third one had the boys guessing. The newspaper man guessed and guessed and never hit upon it. As a matter of fact, it hasn't anything to do with baseball records at all. Maybe I'll realize it and maybe I won't. But my third ambition is to play at least one season at a salary of $100,000 a year. Don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that now to boost my game and I'm not out with any announcement of my demands. I've played with Colonel Ruppert a long time and we've never had any serious disagreements. I know that if I can show him that I'm worth that much money, he'll give it to me. And I'm out to show him. Understand it's strictly up to me. And I mention it here simply because of the question the newspaper man asked me and the answer I gave him.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

In "Babe Ruth Says: I Would Like to Better Mark," The Austin Statesman (June 25, 1929), p. 11

Money, World, Home, Game

“An aim in life is the only fortune worth finding.”

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929–1994) public figure, First Lady to 35th U.S. President John F. Kennedy

Attributed in Wisdom Through the Ages : Book Two (2003) by Helen Granat, p. 118; this actually is cited to Robert Louis Stevenson in The Law of Success (1928) by Napoleon Hill: "An aim in life is the only fortune worth finding; and it is not to be found in foreign lands, but in the heart itself."
Misattributed

Life

“The good is worth more than the best.”

Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist and essayist

Good Morning

“Poppycock religion is America's new faith. It is easy. It is quick. It allows a person to feel spiritual, seem intellectual, have a faith to follow, and have something interesting to talk about over coffee. Poppycock is the quick-fix diet of the spiritual industry. It sells. It rarely threatens or confronts the seeker, allowing each to forge his own individual "religion." The poppycock believer changes the rules as he goes. If he misses a basket, he will say that a missd basket is still worth two points. The poppycock believer does not serve his god, rather his god serves him. He has everything to gain and nothing to lose.”

Donald Miller (1971) American writer

Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance (2000, Harvest House Publishers)

God, Faith, Religion, Feeling

“At its core, the argument against racism, at least as it works to further black interests, is an argument against collectivism. You're meant to avoid judging an entire people based on the color of their epidermis or the conduct of a statistically significant number of them. It is, however, deemed perfectly acceptable to malign and milk Europeans for all they're worth, based on the lack of pigment in their skin and their overall better socio-economic performance.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"Europeans Abolished Slavery; Africans/Muslims Still Practice It." http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/263735/europeans-abolished-slavery-africansmuslims-still-ilana-mercer FrontPage Magazine 8/4/016. <br class="br">2010s, 2016

People, Color

“I’ll have to learn to snowshoe. I had my first lesson this morning and cut a ludicrous figure. I’ll be virtually a prisoner until I learn my way around. But any price is worth paying to get away from the thought-destroying din and soul-killing routine of the city!”

Fritz Leiber (1910–1992) American writer of fantasy, horror, and science fiction

“Diary in the Snow” (p. 203); originally published in the first edition of Night's Black Agents (1947)
Short Fiction, Night's Black Agents (1947)

Way, Soul, Learning

“The fact is that in order to do any thing in this world worth doing, we must not stand shivering on the bank thinking of the cold and the danger, but jump in and scramble through as well as we can.”

Sydney Smith (1771–1845) English writer and clergyman

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 6

World, Thinking

“Whatever is worth saying, can be stated in fifty words or less.”

Stanislaw Ulam (1909–1984) Polish-American mathematician

as quoted by Gian-Carlo Rota in Words spoken at the memorial service for S. M. Ulam (The Lodge, Los Alamos, New Mexico, May 17, 1984), published in The Mathematical Intelligencer, Volume 6, Number 4 / December, 1984

“Easy victories aren’t worth winning.”

Ursula K. Le Guin book The Eye of the Heron

Source: The Eye of the Heron (1978), Chapter 4 (p. 54)

Victory

“Kerner's father was worth a couple of millions. He was willing to stand for art, but he drew the line at the factory girl. So Kerner disinherited his father and walked out to a cheap studio and lived on sausages for breakfast and on Farroni for dinner.”

O. Henry (1862–1910) American short story writer

"The Fool-Killer"
The Voice of the City (1908)

Art, Girl

“The young people who now proposed to devote themselves to intellectual studies no longer took the term to mean attending a university and taking a nibble of this or that from the dainties offered by celebrated and loquacious professors who without authority offered them the crumbs of what had once been higher education. Now they had to study just as stringently and methodically as the engineers and technicians of the past, if not more so. They had a steep path to climb, had to purify and strengthen their minds by dint of mathematics and scholastic exercises in Aristotelian philosophy. Moreover, they had to learn to renounce all those benefits which previous generations of scholars had considered worth striving for: rapid and easy money-making, celebrity and public honors, the homage of the newspapers, marriages with daughters of bankers and industrialists, a pampered and luxurious style of life.”

Hermann Hesse book The Glass Bead Game

The Glass Bead Game (1943)

Life, Money, Marriage, People

“The idea of taking up art as a calling, a profession, is a mirage. Art enriches life. It makes life worth living. But to make a living at it—that idea is incompatible with making art.”

John Sloan (1871–1951) American painter

Ibid., p. 26.
The Gist of Art (1939)

Life, Art, Idea

“Indeed it is a doubtful fact whether clever people are ever very agreeable; they are too much absorbed by one particular pursuit, to bound lightly enough over those generalities which are the stepping-stones of conversation; they feel as if they ought to say something worth remembering.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Monthly Magazine

People, Feeling

“Do not keep on with a mockery of friendship after the substance is gone — but part, while you can part friends. Bury the carcass of friendship: it is not worth embalming.”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

" On The Conduct of Life" http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/Hazlitt/ConductLife.htm (1822), reprinted in The Collected Works of William Hazlitt (1902-1904)

Friendship, Parting, Friendship, For Friend

“Paresis, as it is generally called in preference to the old GPI or general paralysis of the insane, is characterized by symptoms of bewildering variety, confirming the description of syphilis as the Great Imitator or, because of this very wealth of its ultimate manifestations, the Aristocrat of Diseases. Paresis involves a meningoencephalitis which marks its onset by personality changes, mild at first but growing steadily worse. There is irritability, failure of memory and judgement, insomnia, slovenliness, aggression, confusion, delusion, manic depression, epileptiform convulsion, slurred speech, incontinence, emaciation, sensational psychosis, finally death. The act of careless bohemian love, anonymous, quick and uncondomized, is proved not to have been worth the trouble or money…..”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Non-Fiction, Homage to QWERT YUIOP: Selected Journalism 1978-1985 (1986)

Love, Death, Money, Disease

“With the passage of time, whatever a man had done, whether for good or evil, with the man's bodily organs, left the man's parish unaffected: only a man's thoughts and dreams could outlive him, in any serious sense, and these might survive with perhaps augmenting influence: so that Kennaston had come to think artistic creation in words — since marble and canvas inevitably perished — was the one, possibly, worth-while employment of human life. But here was a crude corporal deed which bluntly destroyed thoughts, and annihilated dreams by wholesale. To Kennaston this seemed the one real tragedy that could be staged on earth….”

James Branch Cabell book The Cream of the Jest

Source: The Cream of the Jest (1917), Ch. 24 : Deals with Pen Scratches

Life, Dreams, Thinking, Sense

“I wanna say this to every man that has a mind, to all the intelligent life forms that exist on this planet Earth. I wish the British would say this to the Scottish Rites and the Masons and all the people with minds who have degrees of knowledge, and who are aware of courts, laws, United Nations, governments.
In the 40s, we had a war, and all of our economies went towards this war effort. The war ended on one level, but we wouldn't let it end on the other levels. We kept buying and selling this war. I'm not locked in the penitentiary for crimes, I'm locked in the Second World War. I'm locked in the Second World War with this decision to bring to the World Court - there must be a One World Court, or we're all gonna be devoured by crime.
Crime, and the definition of crime comes from Nuremberg, when the judges decided that they wanted to call Second World War a crime. Honor and war is not a crime. Crime is bad. When you go to war and you're a soldier, and you fight for your God and your country, that's not criminal. That's honorable. That's what you must do to be a man. If you don't fight for your God and your country, you're not worth anything. If you have no honor, then you're not worth petty's pigs.
Truth is, we've got to overturn this decision that you made in the Second World War, or the Second World War will never end. Degrees of the war was written in Switzerland, in Geneva, at conferences that were made by the men at the tables, clearly stated that anyone in uniform would be given the respect of their rank and their uniforms. Then when the United States and got all the Germans in handcuffs, they started breaking their own rules. And they've been breaking their own rules ever since. War is not a crime, but if you judge war as a crime in a court room, then turn around: If 2 + 3 = 5, and 3 + 2 = 5; if you say war is a crime, then crime becomes your war. I am, by all standards, a prisoner of war.
I've been a prisoner of war since 1944 in Juvenile Hall, for setting a school building on fire in Indianapolis, Indiana. I've been locked up 45 years trying to figure out why I got to be a criminal. It matters not whether I want to be; you've got to keep criminals going to keep the war going because that's your economy, your whole economy is based on the war. You've got to get your dollar bills off the war, you've got your silver market sterling off of the war, you've got to take your gold and your diamonds off of the war - You've got to overturn that decision, that hung 6000 men by the neck.
You killed 6000 soldiers for obeying orders. It's wrong. And the world has got to accept that's wrong. When you accept you're wrong, and you say you're sorry for all the things you've done, then that will be a note on that court, and we'll have some harmony going on this planet Earth, now.”

Charles Manson (1934–2017) American criminal and musician

Interview with Bill Murphy (1994) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAjh_wOByoY

Life, Men, God, War

“I am gaining in health slowly, and am quite cheerful in view of my approaching end, — being fully persuaded that I am worth inconceivably more to hang than any other purpose.”

John Brown (abolitionist) (1800–1859) American abolitionist

Letter to his brother Jeremiah https://archive.org/stream/lifeandlettersof00sanbrich/lifeandlettersof00sanbrich_djvu.txt (12 November 1859).

Health

“Intelligence test scores and marks in school are not always true indicators of the worth of a student, nor even the power of his intellect.”

Eugene S. Wilson (1905)

Jack R, Maguire, "Editorial: The Case for the C-Average Student", The Alcalde, September 1961, p. 5 http://books.google.com/books?id=qdIDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA5 <br class="br">Attributed

School, Intelligence

“Y'all ever seen these commercials for these pills, this medication you take? It's like one pill for one thing, but they list, like, a hundred side effects? It's just like they're just scrolling for a minute. And you're thinkin, "Is that really a good trade? That can't be a good trade." You got people going, "Well, I can take the headaches, nausea, and vomiting, if it'll make my elbow feel better. It's really worth it—it is. I mean I've been taking it—Oh, oww! Owww! I can move it around, play with the kids, and—[pretends to vomit]. I've got full range of motion here."”

Tim Hawkins (1968) Christian comedian, songwriter, and singer

Available on YouTube as " Tim Hawkins on Products https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MdVx6UYpHg" (uploaded 27 August 2007). <br class="br">Full Range of Motion (2006)

People, Feeling

“The democratic ideal springs from the ideas of liberty, equality, majority rule through free elections, protection of the rights of minorities, and freedom to subscribe to multiple loyalties in matters of religion, economics, and politics rather than to a total loyalty to the state. The spirit of democracy is the idea of importance and worth in the individual, and faith in the kind of world where the individual can achieve as much of his potential as possible.”

Saul D. Alinsky (1909–1972) American community organizer and writer

Source: Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals (1971), p. xxiv

World, Faith, Religion, Democracy

“Every 3 feet of lead is worth about one-tenth of a second, and a rolling start is worth a good half second. Indeed, the difference between the runner having his weight mainly on his front foot and mainly on his back foot (but don't let the pitcher catch you leaning!) must be worth more than one-tenth of a second.”

Robert Adair (physicist) (1924) Physicist and author

Source: The Physics Of Baseball (Second Edition - Revised), Chapter 4, Running, Fielding, And Throwing, p. 57

“There is a decivilizing bug somewhere at work; unconsciously persons of stern worth, by not resenting and resisting the small indignities of the times, are preparing themselves for the eventual acceptance of what they themselves know they don’t want.”

E. B. White (1899–1985) American writer

Harper's Magazine (October 1938); quoted in Scott Elledge, E.B. White: A Biography (New York: Norton, 1984), ch. X: Mr Tilley's Departure (p. 209)

Time, Personality

“I am not much an advocate for travelling, and I observe that men run away to other countries because they are not good in their own, and run back to their own because they pass for nothing in the new places. For the most part, only the light characters travel. Who are you that have no task to keep you at home? I have been quoted as saying captious things about travel; but I mean to do justice. …. He that does not fill a place at home, cannot abroad. He only goes there to hide his insignificance in a larger crowd. You do not think you will find anything there which you have not seen at home? The stuff of all countries is just the same. Do you suppose there is any country where they do not scald milk-pans, and swaddle the infants, and burn the brushwood, and broil the fish? What is true anywhere is true everywhere. And let him go where he will, he can only find so much beauty or worth as he carries.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson book The Conduct of Life

The Conduct of Life, Chapter 4, “Culture,” p. 145

Men, Justice, Beauty, Travel

“It is worth pointing out that in this particular study our authors have abandoned demand and supply functions as a tool for analysis, even as applied to individuals… [The problem] has been reformulated as one of proving that a number of maximizations of individual goals under interdependent restraints can be simultaneously carried out.”

Tjalling Koopmans (1910–1985) Dutch American economist

Source: Three Essays (1957), p. 60, as cited in: Mitra-Kahn, Benjamin H. "General Equilibrium Theory, its history and its relation (if any) to the Market Economy." (2005).

Problem, Study

“I said, ‘You are now placed in a position to help the Chinese as you have never been before. They see that your being a foreigner is now no protection, but increases your danger. Let them see that you are rejoicing in God... that you do not need any other protection and that you do not go away, although you might; that you put your trust in God, and are prepared either to suffer or be delivered as He sees best, will learn that there is something in the Gospel worth risking life for.’ What was the result? In almost every place where there were native Christians they grew (in spiritual maturity) as never before.”

James Hudson Taylor (1832–1905) Missionary in China

(A.J. Broomhall. Hudson Taylor and China’s Open Century, Book Five: Refiner’s Fire. London: Hodder and Stoughton and Overseas Missionary Fellowship, 1985, 257).

Life, God, Suffering, Learning

“It was getting the results that made science worth doing; the accolades were a thin, secondary pleasure.”

Gregory Benford book Timescape

Source: Timescape (1980), Chapter 39 (p. 411)

Pleasure, Science

“Safe in the womb of an everlasting night,
You find the darkness can give the brightest light.
Safe in your place deep in the earth,
That's when they'll know what you were really worth.”

Nick Drake (1948–1974) British singer-songwriter

Fruit Tree
Song lyrics, Five Leaves Left (1969)

Light, Night

“If you do not act, the world dies, and you with it. Surely survival is worth a little effort? Unless you are so eager to retire to that dismal heaven of your Christian god?”

Melinda M. Snodgrass (1951) American writer

Source: Queen's Gambit Declined (1989), Chapter 2 (p. 21)

God, World, Effort

“Between things sacred and profane there is this difference among others. In profane matters the instrument derives its worth from the end, and is valued for the most part only in so far as it is a means to that end; and consequently we change the instruments as the end demands, and finally, when the end is no longer pursued, the instruments automatically fall into disuse. But in sacred matters the end invests the instrument with a sanctity of its own. Consequently, there is no changing or varying of the instrument; and when the end has ceased to be pursued, the instrument does not fall out of use, but is directed towards another end. In other words: in the one case we preserve the shell for the sake of the kernel, and discard the shell when we have eaten the kernel; in the other case we raise the shell to the dignity of the kernel, and do not rob it of that dignity even if the kernel withers, but make a new kernel for it.”

Ahad Ha'am (1856–1927) Hebrew essayist and thinker

Source: Selected Essays (1904), "Sacred and Profane" (1891), p. 41

Change, Parting

“What are the ideas right now worth betraying? What are the lies we tell ourselves now?”

Bono (1960) Irish rock musician, singer of U2

PENN Address (2004)

Idea

“And the reason the federal government wasn’t given that power [to create paper money or issue bills of credit] was because the framers didn’t want it to have the power to create inflation. They had just experienced it firsthand with the Continental dollar, which ended up being worth around 10 cents and gave rise to the expression “not worth a Continental.””

Peter D. Schiff (1963) American entrepreneur, economist and author

Quotes from Crash Proof (2006)

Money

“He who weeps does not die; weeping is a sign of life; weep, and your life is worth something again.”

Halldór Laxness book The Atom Station

Atómstöðin (The Atom Station) (1948)

Life

“I come more and more to the conclusion that wilderness, in America or anywhere else, is the only thing left that is worth saving.”

Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto) (1990)

“As Frederic Thrasher says in The Gang, “Other things being equal, the imaginative boy has an excellent chance to become the leader of the gang. He has the power to make things interesting for them.” … After a disastrous week when there were several juvenile murders, the Governor of New York made the following statement (New York Times, September 2, 1959): “We have to constantly devise new ways to bring about a challenge to these young folks and to provide an outlet for their energies and give them a sense of belonging.” … The gist of it is that the Governor of New York is to play the role that Thrasher assigns to the teen-age gang leader. He is to think up new “challenges.” … But it is the word “constantly” that is the clue. A challenge can hardly be worth while, meaningful, or therapeutic if another must constantly and obsessively be devised to siphon off a new threat of “energy.” … Solidly meeting real needs does not have this character. My guess is that in playing games the Governor will not have so lively an imagination as the lad he wants to displace as leader; unlike the grownups, the gang will never select him. One of the objective factors that make it hard to grow up is that Governors are likely to be men of mediocre human gifts.”

Paul Goodman book Growing Up Absurd

Source: Growing Up Absurd (1956), pp. 42-43.

Men, Age, Way, Imagination

“After Bjartur had become a person of great worth, even he was prone to admit on occasion that life had sometimes been pretty hard in Summerhouses in the old days, but one has to take a few knocks if one wants to get on, surely, and anyway we never ate other folk's bread. Other folk's bread is the most virulent form of poison that a free and independent man can take; other folk's bread is the only thing that can rob him of independence and the one true freedom.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Sjálfstætt fólk (Independent People) (1935), Book Two, Part II: Years of Prosperity

Life, Freedom, Personality

“The one-sided funding creates one-sided images that reinforce the press defining as progress an examination of only women’s issues. Thus, a quarter century’s-worth of studies showing domestic violence against men to be more than equal to domestic violence against women receive so little publicity as to barely make a dent on the public’s consciousness.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 241.

Women, Men, Study

“What is all your studying worth, all your learning, all your knowledge, if it doesn’t lead to wisdom? And what’s wisdom but knowing what is right, and what is the right thing to do?”

Iain Banks Culture series

Source: Culture series, Use of Weapons (1990), Chapter Ten (p. 316).

Wisdom, Knowledge, Study, Learning

“Is this thing even worth reviewing? Right off the bat, I'm glad to see that my initial reactions to this thing were accurate. Anyone who believes this thing is a game changer is a tool. I'm sorry, but that's just the way it is.”

Paul Thurrott (1966) American podcaster, author, and blogger

Apple iPad Hands-On First Impressions http://winsupersite.com/article/product-review/apple-ipad-hands-on-first-impressions in Paul Thurrott's Supersite For Windows (6 October 2010)

Way, Game

“If physics is too difficult for the physicists, the nonphysicist may wonder whether he should try at all to grasp its complexities and ambiguities. It is undeniably an effort, but probably one worth making, for the basic questions are important and the new experimental results are often fascinating. And if the layman runs into serious perplexities, he can be consoled with the thought that the points which baffle him are more than likely the ones for which the professionals have not found satisfactory answers.”

Edward Condon (1902–1974) physicist

Physics, in What is Science?: Twelve Eminent Scientists and Philosophers Explain Their Various Fields to the Layman, by James Roy Newman, published by Simon and Schuster (1955), p. 102

Question, Effort

“The twentieth century was like twenty years' worth of change at today's rate of change.”

Ray Kurzweil (1948) Author, scientist, inventor, and futurist

"The Singularity," The New Humanists: Science at the Edge (2003)

Change

“The one self-knowledge worth having is to know one’s own mind.”

F. H. Bradley (1846–1924) British philosopher

No. 8.
Aphorisms (1930)

Knowledge

“I find that I have great faith in human nature. I believe that people are good. I believe they are to be trusted. So far as I know, no one has ever betrayed my faith, in any way. If they ever have, I've been spared the knowledge of it.
If I couldn't have faith in human nature, I wouldn't want to live. It is the one thing that could destroy for me the joy of living.
I've come to believe that life, under almost any conditions, is worth while.
I found that out when I had my accident some years ago, and was in the hospital.
I thought, for a couple of weeks, that I would be blind for life. I thought I would surely be so disabled that I would never be able to work again. I didn't suppose that I would have one five-hundredth of what I have now. Still I thought, 'Life is worth while. Just to be alive. I still think so.”

Harold Lloyd (1893–1971) American film actor and producer

"Discoveries About Myself". Motion Picture, October 1930, pg. 90. (Brewster Publications). https://archive.org/stream/motionpicture1923040chic#page/n595/mode/2up

Life, People, Faith, Way

“Do away with the miracles, and the superhuman character of Christ is destroyed. He becomes what he really was—a man. Do away with the wonders, and the teachings of Christ cease to be authoritative. They are then worth the reason, the truth that is in them, and nothing more. Do away with the miracles, and then we can measure the utterances of Christ with the standard of our reason. We are no longer intellectual serfs, believing what is unreasonable in obedience to the command of a supposed god.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

Orthodoxy (1884)

God, Truth, Christ

“I was worth about over a million dollars when I was twenty-three and over ten million dollars when I was twenty-four, and over a hundred million dollars when I was twenty-five and it wasn't that important because I never did it for the money.”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

Interview in the PBS documentary Triumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires (1996)
1990s

Money

““Let me get this,” the Old Man said. “You are promising the human race that, if we will just surrender, you will take care of us and make us happy. Right?”
“Exactly!”
The Old Man studied this while looking past my shoulders. He spat on the floor. “You know,” he said slowly, “me and my kind, we have often been offered that bargain. It never worked out worth a damn.””

Robert A. Heinlein book The Puppet Masters

Source: The Puppet Masters (1951), Chapter 10 (p. 58)

Happiness, Study, Past

“I regret that we did not make a stronger effort to drop the name Republika Srpska. We underestimated the value to Pale of retaining their blood-soaked name. We may also have underestimated the strength of our negotiating hand on that day, when the bombing had resumed. In retrospect, I think we should have pushed Milosevic harder to change the name of the Bosnian Serb entity. Even if the effort failed, as Owen and Hill predicted, it would have been worth trying.”

Richard Holbrooke (1941–2010) American diplomat

Source: 1990s, To End a War (1998), p. 135

Thinking, Effort, Change

“Separate wealth from value. All living things have value. We impart this value upon lifeless things to give them worth not vice versa.”

Lupe Fiasco (1982) rapper

Rules 2 Rule

Wealth

“To repeat to yourself a thousand times a day: 'Nothing on Earth has any worth,' to keep finding yourself at the same point, to circle stupidly as a top, eternally…”

Emil M. Cioran book A Short History of Decay

A Short History of Decay (1949)

Time

“Once did She hold the gorgeous east in fee;
And was the safeguard of the west: the worth
Of Venice did not fall below her birth,
Venice, the eldest Child of Liberty.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic, l. 1 (1807).

Birth

“I don't think it's worth washing hogs over.”

Larry Wall (1954) American computer programmer and author, creator of Perl

[199710060253.TAA09723@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997

Thinking

“I believe in the sacredness of a promise, that a man's word should be as good as his bond; that character — not wealth or power or position — is of supreme worth.”

John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (1874–1960) American financier and philanthropist

I Believe

Wealth

“I know what Claire is. You know I know it. I told you the first minute I met you. But did you ever stop to think it’s all worth it to me? Every time she makes a pass at another man, I know she’s comparing. She’s out on the open market, shopping. And being shopped for. I don’t have any collar around her neck She’s not tame. I’m not a habit to her. I’m not something she’s tied to by any law. And every time she winds up coming back to me, you know what that proves. It proves I’m still the toughest man in the pack. Because she wouldn’t stay if I wasn’t.”

Algis Budrys book Rogue Moon

Source: Rogue Moon (1960), Chapter 5, Section 6 (p. 113)

Law, Thinking, Time

“The Philosopher of this age is not a Socrates, a Plato, a Hooker, or Taylor, who inculcates on men the necessity and infinite worth of moral goodness, the great truth that our happiness depends on the mind which is within us, and not on the circumstances which are without us; but a Smith, a De Lolme, a Bentham, who chiefly inculcates the reverse of this,—that our happiness depends entirely on external circumstances; nay, that the strength and dignity of the mind within us is itself the creature and consequence of these. Were the laws, the government, in good order, all were well with us; the rest would care for itself! Dissentients from this opinion, expressed or implied, are now rarely to be met with; widely and angrily as men differ in its application, the principle is admitted by all.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1820s, Signs of the Times (1829)

Men, Happiness, Truth, Age

“[In The Achieving Society, 'need for achievement' is uncovered by having individuals write stories based on pictures they see] the stories represented short samples of the things people are most likely to think about or imagine when they are in a state of heightened motivation having to do with achievement. It may be worth considering for a moment why fantasy as a type of behavior has many advantages over any other type of behavior for sensitively reflecting the effects of motivational arousal. In fantasy anything is at least symbolically possible… Overt action, on the other hand, is much more constrained by limits set by reality or by the person's abilities. Furthermore, fantasy is more easily influenced than other kinds of behavior.”

David C. McClelland (1917–1998) American psychological theorist

Source: The Archiving Society, 1961, p. 40; As cited in: Kevin Hindle, ‎Kim Klyver (2011), Handbook of Research on New Venture Creation, p. 74-75

People, Behavior, Imagination, Motivation

“Back in the mid-1700s, Samuel Johnson observed that there were two kinds of knowledge: that which you know, and that which you know where to get. It was a moment when cheap and abundant print coupled with reliable postal networks triggered an information explosion that dramatically changed the way people thought. […] Now the Internet is changing how we think again. Just as print took over the once-human task of knowing, cyberspace is assuming the task of knowing where to get what we seek. […] Now we revel in search, but most of what we search for isn't worth seeking, as the top search lists on Google, Yahoo and Bing make clear. […] The Internet has changed our thinking, but if it is to be a change for the better, we must add a third kind of knowledge to Johnson's list — the knowledge of what matters.”

Paul Saffo (1954) American writer

"A Third Kind of Knowledge" http://www.edge.org/q2010/q10_7.html#saffo, in The Edge Annual Question—2010: How Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think? http://www.edge.org/q2010/q10_index.html, January 2010

People, Way, Search, Knowledge

“I have never thought for a moment that if you cannot say it with numbers that it just is not worth saying. But all the same, I do firmly believe that where you cannot put numbers to work you will understand the matter better and more clearly for being able to explain why.”

Nicholas Rescher (1928) American philosopher

Epistemetrics (2006), Preface

Understanding

“Iron Pillar: “…In our opinion this pillar was made in the ninth century before (the birth of) Lord Jesus… When Rai Pithora built a fort and an idol-house near this pillar, it stood in the courtyard of the idol-house. And when Qutbu’d-Din Aibak constructed a mosque after demolishing the idol-house, this pillar stood in the courtyard of the mosque…
”Idol-house of Rai Pithora: “There was an idol-house near the fort of Rai Pithora. It was very famous… It was built along with the fort in 1200 Bikarmi [Vikrama SaMvat] corresponding to AD 1143 and AH 538. The building of this temple was very unusual, and the work done on it by stone-cutters is such that nothing better can be conceived. The beautiful carvings on every stone in it defy description… The eastern and northern portions of this idol-house have survived intact. The fact that the Iron Pillar, which belongs to the Vaishnava faith, was kept inside it, as also the fact that sculptures of Kirshan avatar and Mahadev and Ganesh and Hanuman were carved on its walls, leads us to believe that this temple belonged to the Vaishnava faith. Although all sculptures were mutilated in the times of Muslims, even so a close scrutiny can identify as to which sculpture was what. In our opinion there was a red-stone building in this idol-house, and it was demolished. For, this sort of old stones with sculptures carved on them are still found.
”Quwwat al-Islam Masjid: “When Qutbu’d-Din, the commander-in-chief of Muizzu’d-Din Sam alias Shihabu’d-Din Ghuri, conquered Delhi in AH 587 corresponding to AD 1191 corresponding to 1248 Bikarmi, this idol-house (of Rai Pithora) was converted into a mosque. The idol was taken out of the temple. Some of the images sculptured on walls or doors or pillars were effaced completely, some were defaced. But the structure of the idol-house kept standing as before. Materials from twenty-seven temples, which were worth five crores and forty lakhs of Dilwals, were used in the mosque, and an inscription giving the date of conquest and his own name was installed on the eastern gate…“When Malwah and Ujjain were conquered by Sultan Shamsu’d-Din in AH 631 corresponding to AD 1233, then the idol-house of Mahakal was demolished and its idols as well as the statue of Raja Bikramajit were brought to Delhi, they were strewn in front of the door of the mosque…”“In books of history, this mosque has been described as Masjid-i-Adinah and Jama‘ Masjid Delhi, but Masjid Quwwat al-Islam is mentioned nowhere. It is not known as to when this name was adopted. Obviously, it seems that when this idol-house was captured, and the mosque constructed, it was named Quwwat al-Islam…””

Syed Ahmed Khan (1820–1898) Indian educator and politician

About antiquities of Delhi. Translated from the Urdu of Asaru’s-Sanadid, edited by Khaleeq Anjum, New Delhi, 1990. Vol. I, p. 305-16
Asaru’s-Sanadid

Books, Faith, Beauty, History

“It's not worth moving heaven and earth, spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

[2007-04-26, AP Interview: Romney says he's not the only one switching positions, rivals do it too, Liz Sidoti, San Francisco Chronicle, http://web.archive.org/web/20070430053858/http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/04/26/politics/p131443D20.DTL&type=politics, 2007-04-30, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/04/26/politics/p131443D20.DTL&type=politics]
regarding Osama bin Laden
2007 campaign for Republican nomination for United States President

Personality

“Yes, sex may be at least in part inflected by politics, our fantasies may be at least in part a compendium of cultural myths, but the ways in which sex and fantasy ripen within the individual seem to me to vary so greatly that summaries become useless, even dangerous.But if I were to venture my own generalizations, I would say that with the collapse of other social values (those of religion, patriotism, the family and so on), sex has been forced to take up the slack, to become our sole mode of transcendence and our only touchstone of authenticity. The cry for scorching, multiple orgasms, the drive toward impeccable and virtuoso performance, the belief that only in complete sexual compatibility lies true intimacy, the insistence that sex is the only mode for experiencing thrills, for achieving love, for assessing and demonstrating personal worth — all these projects are absurd.”

Edmund White (1940) American novelist and LGBT essayist

New York City (p. 282).
States of Desire: Travels in Gay America (1980)

Love, Family, Religion, Sex

“Benjamin Black is a craftsman and these are crafted works. I'm very proud of them. I think they're well made, but Banville is doing something else – he's trying to make a kind of poetry, I suppose. I'm a perfectionist. It's an illness but a good illness. It's a completely different method of writing. Banville writes with a fountain pen on paper in a manuscript book and Black works straight on to the screen. It could take me a whole morning to write a few sentences as Banville, but as Black I'd be very annoyed if I didn't have at least two or three pages done. This drives crime-writers crackers because they think I'm saying that their craft is not worth it. I'm simply saying it's a different thing. I don't know why they worry when I talk about speed; after all, Georges Simenon wrote his books in about 10 days.”

John Banville (1945) Irish writer

John Banville: Who cares whodunnit? (2013)

Books, Thinking, Speed

“Love is so blissful a thing, so blessed an endeavour, that apart from its teaching none attains worth or reputation.”

Gottfried von Straßburg book Tristan

Liebe ist ein also saelic dinc,
ein also saeleclich gerinc,
daz nieman ane ir lere
noch tugende hat noch ere.
Source: Tristan, Line 187

Love

“Singer worth their while must watch it;
Always count your dotted crotchet.”

Caryl Brahms (1901–1982) English critic, novelist, and journalist

Rappel 1910

“My old landscapes of Pennsylvania are worth so much now that I have to hide them, so I don't get put in an even higher tax bracket. For years nobody would pay a dime for them. They're still the same paintings. They didn't get any better. I treasure them as much as my recent black and white abstracts... My dealer was furious when I showed him my latest works. I'm returning to color. He tells me to ride it out and change when the fashion change. I told him no! I told him I paint each painting from the heart. I have followed my heart all my life.”

Franz Kline (1910–1962) American painter

1959
Quote from a speech of Kline in the jazz club The Five Spot, as quoted in Introduction by David Anram, The Stamp of Impulse, Abstract expressionist prints, David Anram, David Acton, p. 21
1960's

Life, Color, Fashion, Change

“Burns's Brother Gilbert, a man of much sense and worth, has told me that Robert, in his young days, in spite of their hardship, was usually the gayest of speech; a fellow of infinite frolic, laughter, sense and heart; far pleasanter to hear there, stript cutting peats in the bog, or such like, than he ever afterwards knew him. I can well believe it. This basis of mirth, a primal element of sunshine and joyfulness, coupled with his other deep and earnest qualities, is one of the most attractive characteristics of Burns. A large fund of Hope dwells in him; spite of his tragical history, he is not a mourning man. He shakes his sorrows gallantly aside; bounds forth victorious over them.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Man of Letters

Hope, History, Sense, Laughter

“When you are poor you don’t have any social respect or social worth because everything is defined in terms of money and how much of it you have. This is what capitalism does. It turns all values into commercial values, even the value of life itself.”

Kevin Rashid Johnson (1971) American prisoner and social activist

Defying the Tomb: Selected Prison Writings and Art of Kevin Rashid Johnson (2010)

Life, Money

“One hour of life, crowded to the full with glorious action, and filled with noble risks, is worth whole years of those mean observances of paltry decorum, in which men steal through existence, like sluggish waters through a marsh, without either honour or observation.”

Walter Scott (1771–1832) Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet

Countess Brenhilda in Count Robert of Paris (1832), Ch. 25.

Life, Men, Water

“The theater needs continual reminders that there is nothing more debasing than the work of those who do well what is not worth doing at all.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

"Love Love Love," Partisan Review (Spring 1959)
1970s, Homage to Daniel Shays : Collected Essays (1972)

“The first time you watch it you'll probably cry a bit. The second time you watch it you will probably think - boy that would be bad having a head like that being picked on - the third time you are probably thinking, er, how does he get his jumper on, er, then dunno probably bored of it the fourth time. But, but it's well worth watching.”

Karl Pilkington (1972) English television personality, social commentator, actor, author and former radio producer

Xfm 07 December 2002
On The Elephant Man

Boy, Thinking, Time, Cry

“A man is a fabulous nuisance in space right now. He's not worth all the cost of putting him up there and keeping him comfortable and working.”

James Van Allen (1914–2006) American nuclear physicist

On men in space, Reach Into Space http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,892531,00.html, Time, 1959-05-04.

“The natural law of good communications takes the following, quite different, form in SA:
Everything worth saying
about anything worth saying something about
must be expressed in six or fewer pieces.”

Douglas T. Ross (1929–2007) American computer scientist

Source: Structured analysis (SA): A language for communicating ideas (1977), p. 18; Statement cited in: Peter Freeman, ‎Anthony I. Wasserman (1983), Tutorial on software design techniques. p. 98.

Law, Communication, Nature

“What in God’s name is it worth to be human, if we have to be saved from ourselves by a machine?”

John Brunner book Stand on Zanzibar

continuity (42) “And Say Which Seed Will Grow“
Stand on Zanzibar (1968)

God

“This mournful truth is ev'rywhere confessed —
Slow rises worth, by poverty depressed.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

London: A Poem (1738) http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/london2.html, lines 176–177

Truth

“There are things worth fighting for.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Rand al'Thor
(15 October 1994)

Fight, Attitude, Beauty, Family

“On the highway, I hit a deer. I kept him. He's at home in the garage on the rafters. I'm going to use him for the celebration this weekend. He's a prop. They might suspend me for the last game, but I think this one is worth it. This is going to be the greatest celebration of all time, man. I actually use an animal.”

Chad Johnson (1978) American football player, wide receiver

"Bengals' Johnson planning new celebration" http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2267038, ESPN.com (21 December 2005)

Home, Game, Thinking, Time

“Among those today who believe that modern poetry must do without rhyme or metre, there is an assumption that the alternative to free verse is a crash course in villanelles, sestinas and other such fixed forms. But most…are rare in English poetry. Few poets have written a villanelle worth reading, or indeed regret not having done so.”

James Fenton (1949) poet

Source: An Introduction to English Poetry (2002), Ch. 3: The Training of the Poet (p. 21)

Reading

“To regard one’s immortality as an exchange of matter is as strange as predicting the future of a violin case once the expensive violin it held has broken and lost its worth.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Ward No. 6, ch. 7 (1892)

Future

“Ladies, your self-worth is like your price tag. If he's not offering what your worth, he can't have you. No bargains, no sales.”

Keshia Chante (1988) Canadian actor and musician

Official Website (2009)

“If being hit on the head by a falling flower tub could be worth cash to the victim, what price a child’s life under civil law?”

Lindsey Davis book The Ides of April

The Ides of April

Life, Law, Flowers

“What are some principles worth living by? Ask a roomful of people, and you will get a roomful of answers. There already exists a code of principles established thousands of years ago and adhered to by people from a variety of religious backgrounds. It has been accepted as a basis for appropriate behavior. Fortunately, no one has copyrighted the Ten Commandments.Although some attempts have been made to prohibit these principles from being displayed, they have survived through the ages. They are the foundation of our laws and commonly accepted codes of human behavior.”

Mike Huckabee (1955) Arkansas politician

[2007-06-01, Character Makes a Difference: Where I'm From, Where I've Been, and What I Believe, B&H Publishing, 9780805446777, 7935510M, 74, http://books.google.com/books?id=Tis1PI_QlecC&pg=PA74]

People, Age, Law, Behavior

“Each moment of the happy lover's hour is worth an age of dull and common life.”

Aphra Behn (1640–1689) British playwright, poet, translator and fiction writer

The Younger Brother, Act III, sc. ii (published posthumously 1696).

Life, Happiness, Age, Lovers

“I don't pretend we have all the answers. But the questions are certainly worth thinking about..”

Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host

As quoted in An Enchanted Life : An Adept's Guide to Masterful Magick (2001) by Patricia Telesco, p. 135
2000s and attributed from posthumous publications

Question, Thinking

“A love to Christ which is so cowardly and selfish that it is unwilling to proclaim by a public confession its faith in Him who hung before all the world crucified for sinners, is a love which is hardly worth the name.”

Abbott Eliot Kittredge (1834–1912) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 155.

Love, World, Faith, Christ

“The heart cherishes secrets not worth the telling”

Stephen R. Donaldson (1947) Novelist

Foamfollower in Lord Foul's Bane, quoting the Elohim

Secret, Heart

Quotes about worth page 14

Quotes about worth
page 14