Quotes about worth
page 7

“I know that homes burn and that you should think what to save before they start to. Not because, in the heat of it, everything looks as valuable as everything else. But, because nothing looks worth the bother, not even your life.”

Amy Hempel (1951) Short story writer

Source: The Collected Stories

Life, Home, Thinking

“Being poor is not an indication of potential or worth. It’s a lack of resources.”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: A Perfect Blood

“Love deems this world worth rescuing.”

Philip Yancey (1949) American writer

Love, World

“She was no longer a slow dreamer watching the flowers grow. She was a warrior now. Warriors need something to fight for though, beside their lives, because otherwise their lives will not be worth it.”

Francesca Lia Block (1962) American children's writer

Source: The Rose and the Beast: Fairy Tales Retold

Flowers, Fight

“For what it’s worth: it’s never too late to be whoever you want to be. I hope you live a life you’re proud of, and if you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.”

Eric Roth (1945) American screenwriter

Source: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Screenplay

Life, Hope

“I've always thought anyone can make money. Making a life worth living, that's the real test.”

Robert Fulghum (1937) American writer

Life, Money

“If you're going to be bad, be bad with a purpose or else you're not worth forgiving.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Forgiveness

“Patience is only a virtue when there is something worth waiting for.”

Lauren Willig (1977) American author

Source: The Masque of the Black Tulip

Waiting, Patience

“Let him go, Julian. His entire body isn’t worth one molecule of yours. (Grace)
(To Paul) Where I come from, we butchered worthless cowards like you just for practice. (Julian)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon Fantasy Lover

Source: Fantasy Lover

“You have to believe there are kisses and laughs and risks worth taking.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: How They Met, and Other Stories

Kiss

“A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business.”

Eric Hoffer book The True Believer

Section 10
The True Believer (1951), Part One: The Appeal of Mass Movements

People, Business

“Perhaps to be able to learn things quickly isn't everything. To be kind is worth a great deal to other people… Lots of clever people have done harm and have been wicked.”

Frances Hodgson Burnett A Little Princess

Source: A Little Princess

People, Learning

“So he's worth a second shot?

The more apt question, my dear, is: are you?”

Rachel Cohn (1968) American writer

Source: Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

Question

“Lists of books we re-read and books we can't finish tell more about us than about the relative worth of the books themselves”

Russell Banks (1940) American author

Books, Reading

“The entire teaching of Buddhism can be summed up in this way: Nothing is worth holding on to.”

Jack Kornfield (1945) American writer

Source: Living Dharma: Teachings of Twelve Buddhist Masters

Way

“Some people are uncomfortable with silences. Not me. I’ve never cared much for call and response. Sometimes I will think of something to say and then I ask myself: is it worth it? And it just isn’t.”

Miranda July (1974) American performance artist, musician and writer

Source: No One Belongs Here More Than You

People, Thinking, Silence

“That something so small could be so beautiful. Worth so much. Only the strongest people can turn away from feelings like that.”

Anthony Doerr book All the Light We Cannot See

Source: All the Light We Cannot See

People, Beauty, Feeling

“Give me a man who is man enough to give himself just to the woman who is worth him. If that woman were me, I would love him alone and forever”

Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice

Love

“… [A]nything worth dying for… is certainly worth living for.”

Joseph Heller book Catch-22

Source: Catch-22

“Your friends will notice at once that glib vacuities fail to impress, and hate you, and tell lies about you. It's worth it.”

Aleister Crowley book Magick Without Tears

Source: Magick Without Tears

Hate

“Every one of a hundred thousand cities around the world had its own special sunset and it was worth going there, just once, if only to see the sun go down.”

Ryū Murakami book Coin Locker Babies

Source: Coin Locker Babies (1980)

World, Sun

“and sometimes I sit
down at my typewriter
and I think
not of someone
cause there isn't anyone
to think
about and i wonder
is it worth it”

Nikki Giovanni (1943) American writer and academic

Thinking

“He is more worth to you, perhaps. But the stranger is someone else's friend and brother. So which life is more important?”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

Life

“No one on earth is so boring and insignificant that he or she is not worth writing or reading about… One thing's for sure—no one but you can be the hero of your story.”

Jerry Spinelli (1941) American children's writer

Source: Today I Will: A Year of Quotes, Notes, and Promises to Myself

Reading

“Though the funny thing about never being asked for anything is that after a while you start to feel like maybe you don’t have anything worth giving.”

Lev Grossman The Magician King

Source: The Magician King

Feeling

“[Education] has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading.”

George Macaulay Trevelyan (1876–1962) Historian

English Social History (1942), ch. 18.

Education, Reading

“No one writes anything worth writing, unless he writes entirely for the sake of his subject.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

Source: The Art of Literature

“Here at last
We shall be free;
the Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.”

John Milton (1608–1674) English epic poet

Hell, Envy

“He smiles at me, and I am suddenly seventeen again - the year I realize that love doesn't follow the rules, the year I understood that nothing is worth having so much as something unattainable”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

Love, Smile

“Nothing written for pay is worth printing. Only what has been written against the market.”

Ezra Pound (1885–1972) American Imagist poet and critic

“… some people aren't worth the trouble of being kind to, because they have neither the brains nor the power to make something for themselves out of your kindness.”

Rob Sheffield (1966) American music journalist

Source: Love Is a Mix Tape

People

“If you love what you do and are willing to do what it takes, it's within your reach. And it'll be worth every minute you spend alone at night, thinking and thinking about what it is you want to design or build. It'll be worth it, I promise.”

Steve Wozniak book iWoz

Source: iWoz (2006), p. 300

Love, Thinking, Night

“We told him to get on with it. We liked wasting time, but almost nothing was more annoying than having our wasted time wasted on something not worth wasting it on.”

Joshua Ferris (1974) American author

Time

“Stupid men are the only ones worth knowing after all.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Men, Stupidity

“(…)while it's true that the unexamined life is not worth living, it's also true that the unlived life isn't worth examining.”

Robert McKee (1941) American academic specialised in seminars for screenwriters

Source: Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting

Life

“The young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

Variant: the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat

Problem, Heart

“Ah, good conversation - there's nothing like it, is there? The air of ideas is the only air worth breathing.”

Edith Wharton The Age of Innocence

Source: The Age of Innocence

Idea

“I think that people who can't believe in fairies aren't worth knowing.”

Tori Amos (1963) American singer

People, Thinking

“Plato did claim that the unexamined life was not worth living. Oedipus Rex was not so sure.”

Tom Robbins (1932) American writer

Life

“The whole city stopped - And this is a pause worth savouring, because the world will soon be complicated again.”

Jon McGregor book If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things

Source: If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things

World

“First Emma. Now Thad. Regin was sick and tired of non-evil vampiric creatures messing with her millennium's worth of scathing animosity for their species…”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Dreams of a Dark Warrior

Evil

“That was the thing about pictures--they were worth a thousand words, but sometimes they weren't the right ones.”

Melissa de la Cruz (1971) American writer

Source: Skinny-Dipping

“Experience is not worth the getting. It's not a thing that happens pleasantly to a passive you--it's a wall that an active you runs up against.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book The Beautiful and Damned

Source: The Beautiful and Damned

“A person's worth is measured by the worth of what he values.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations

Personality

“A modern philosopher who has never once suspected himself of being a charlatan must be such a shallow mind that his work is probably not worth reading.”

Leszek Kolakowski (1927–2009) Philosopher, historian of ideas

Source: Metaphysical Horror (1988)

Reading

“to travel is worth any cost or sacrifice.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Travel

“Land?' Froi whispered. 'You're giving them land? I'm not worth the valley.'

'You're worth a kingdom,' Finnikin said, turning back to the crowd.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Quintana of Charyn

“The Master said, “A true gentleman is one who has set his heart upon the Way. A fellow who is ashamed merely of shabby clothing or modest meals is not even worth conversing with.”
(Analects 4.9)”

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

Way, Heart, Clothes

“This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it, from the moral point of view.”

William James Is Life Worth Living?

"Is Life Worth Living?"
1890s, The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897)

Life

“It’s the things you fight for and struggle with before earning that have the greatest worth.”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

Fight

“Come home with me, Acheron. I’ll make it well worth your while. (Artemis)
I have a headache. (Acheron)
You’ve had a headache for two hundred years! (Artemis)
And you’ve had PMS for eleven thousand. (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon Night Embrace

Source: Night Embrace

Home

“I start to think there really is no cure for depression, that happiness is an ongoing battle, and I wonder if it isn't one I'll have to fight for as long as I live. I wonder if it's worth it.”

Elizabeth Wurtzel book Prozac Nation

Source: Prozac Nation

Happiness, Thinking, Fight

“I need you to know that no matter what happens, it was worth it to me. Being with you, loving you. It was all worth it.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: We'll Always Have Summer

Love

“The only thing that makes life worth living is the possibility of experiencing now and then a perfect moment. And perhaps even more than that, it's having the ability to recall such moments in their totality, to contemplate them like jewels.”

Paul Bowles (1910–1999) American composer, writer, translator

Source: The Spider's House

Life, Perfection

“It is not worth the while to let our imperfections disturb us always.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

“Your imagination, my dear fellow, is worth more than you imagine.”

Louis Aragon (1897–1982) French poet, novelist and editor

Imagination

“Be silent or let thy words be worth more than silence.”

Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher

Silence, Powerful

“In societies where men are truly confident of their own worth, women are not merely tolerated but valued."

(From a speech read on video on August 31, 1995 before the NGO Forum on Women, Beijing, China)”

Aung San Suu Kyi (1945) State Counsellor of Myanmar and Leader of the National League for Democracy

Opening Keynote Address at NGO Forum on Women, Beijing China (1995)
Context: This year is the International Year for Tolerance. The United Nations has recognized that "tolerance, human rights, democracy and peace are closely related. Without tolerance, the foundations form democracy and respect for human rights cannot be strengthened, and the achievement of peace will remain elusive." My own experience during the years I have been engaged in the democracy movement of Burma has convinced me of the need to emphasize the positive aspect of tolerance. It is not enough simply to "live and let live": genuine tolerance requires an active effort to try to understand the point of view of others; it implies broad-mindedness and vision, as well as confidence in one's own ability to meet new challenges without resorting to intransigence or violence. In societies where men are truly confident of their own worth women are not merely "tolerated", they are valued. Their opinions are listened to with respect, they are given their rightful place in shaping the society in which they live.

Women, Men, Confidence, Reading