Quotes4study

"If value corrupts then absolute value corrupts absolutely."

Unknown

What is wanted is the power of sifting evidence, and a simple love of truth. Whatever value we may attach to our own most cherished convictions, there is something more cherished than all of them, and that is a perfect trust in truth, if once we have seen it.

Friedrich Max Müller     Thoughts on Life and Religion

The truth that seems discouraging does in reality only transform the courage of those strong enough to accept it; and, in any event, a truth that disheartens, because it is true, is still of far more value than the most stimulating of falsehoods.

Maurice Maeterlinck

Everywhere the need exists for maternal sympathy and help, and thus we are able to recapitulate in the one word motherliness that which we have developed as the characteristic value of woman. Only, the motherliness must be that which does not remain within the narrow circle of blood relations or of personal friends; but in accordance with the model of the Mother of Mercy, it must have its root in universal divine love for all who are there, belabored and burdened.

Edith Stein

Growing older is an opportunity for you to increase your value and competence as the neural connections in your hippocampus and throughout your brain increase, weaving into your brain and body the wisdom of a life well lived, which allows you to stop living out of fear of disappointing others and being imperfect. Ageless living is courageous living. It means being undistracted by the petty dramas of life because you have enough experience to know what’s not worth worrying about and what ought to be your priorities.

Christiane Northrup

Tanto piu di pregio reca all' opera l'umilta dell' artista, quanto piu aggiunge di valori al numero la nullita del zero=--The modesty of the artist adds as much to the merit of his work as does a cipher (of no value in itself) to the number to which it is joined.

_Bernini._

In my opinion a man's first duty is to find a way of supporting himself, thereby relieving other people of the necessity of supporting him. Moreover, the learning to do work of practical value in the world, in an exact and careful manner, is of itself a very-important education, the effects of which make themselves felt in all other pursuits. The habit of doing that which you do not care about when you would much rather be doing something else, is invaluable.

T. H. Huxley     Aphorisms and Reflections from the Works of T. H. Huxley

It is then good to obey laws and customs because they are laws, but we ought to know that there is neither truth nor justice to introduce into them, that we know nothing about these, and can therefore only follow what is recognised, and thus we should never transgress them. But most men cannot receive this doctrine, and since they believe that truth can be found, and that it resides in law and custom, they believe these laws, and take their antiquity as a proof of their truth, and not merely of their authority apart from truth. Thus they obey the laws, but are liable to revolt when these are shown to be of no value; and this may be proved of all of them, looked at from a certain point of view.

Blaise Pascal     The Thoughts of Blaise Pascal

Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish. And yet it also pleases me and seems right that what is of value and wisdom to one man seems nonsense to another.

Hermann Hesse

Recognizing as I do that I cannot make use of {5} subject matter which is useful and delightful, since my predecessors have exhausted the useful and necessary themes, I shall do as the man who by reason of his poverty arrives last at the fair, and cannot do otherwise than purchase what has already been seen by others and not accepted, but rejected by them as being of little value. I shall place this despised and rejected merchandise, which remains over after many have bought, on my poor pack, and I shall go and distribute it, not in the big cities, but in the poor towns, and take such reward as my goods deserve.

Leonardo da Vinci     Thoughts on Art and Life

If anything can survive the probe of humour it is clearly of value, and conversely all groups who claim immunity from laughter are claiming special privileges which should not be granted.

Eric Idle (born 29 March 1943

Until even religious men see the uniqueness of Christ's society, until they acknowledge to the full extent its claim to be nothing less than a new Kingdom, they will continue the hopeless attempt to live for two Kingdoms at once. And hence the value of a more explicit Classification. For probably the most of the difficulties of trying to live the Christian life arise from attempting to half-live it. Natural Law, p. 396.

Henry Drummond     Beautiful Thoughts

Try to become not a man of success, but try rather to become a man of value. — Albert Einstein

On Success

Ad valorem=--According to the value.

Unknown

Our torment is unbelief, the uncertainty as to what we ought to do, the distrust of the value of what we do, and the distrust that the necessity which we all at last believe in is fair and beneficial.

_Emerson._

The best rules to form a young man are, to talk little, to hear much, to reflect alone upon what has passed in company, to distrust one's own opinions, and value others' that deserve it.

_Sir W. Temple._

We are living in a time of trouble and bewilderment, in a time when none of us can foresee or foretell the future. But surely it is in times like these, when so much that we cherish is threatened or in jeopardy, that we are impelled all the more to strengthen our inner resources, to turn to the things that have no news value because they will be the same to-morrow that they were to-day and yesterday — the things that last, the things that the wisest, the most farseeing of our race and kind have been inspired to utter in forms that can inspire ourselves in turn.

Laurence Binyon (born 10 August 1869

If it be a mark of weakness to prove God by nature, despise not the Scripture for not doing so: if it be a mark of power to know these contradictions, value the Scriptures on that account.

Blaise Pascal     The Thoughts of Blaise Pascal

Imagination has brought mankind through the Dark Ages to its present state of civilization. Imagination led Columbus to discover America. Imagination led Franklin to discover electricity. Imagination has given us the steam engine, the telephone, the talking-machine, and the automobile, for these things had to be dreamed of before they became realities. So I believe that dreams — day dreams, you know, with your eyes wide open and your brain machinery whizzing — are likely to lead to the betterment of the world. The imaginative child will become the imaginative man or woman most apt to create, to invent, and therefore to foster civilization. A prominent educator tells me that fairy tales are of untold value in developing imagination in the young. I believe it.

L. Frank Baum

For Pope Pius XI, the theory of justice is based squarely on the dignity of the human personality. His position is that charity regulates our actions toward the human personality itself, that Image of God which is the object of love because it mirrors forth the Divine Perfections, and in the supernatural order shares those perfections. The human personality, however, because it is a created personality, needs certain “props” for the realization of its dignity. These “props” or supports of human dignity, which includes such things as property, relatives and friends, freedom and responsibility, are all objects of justice. To attack a human person in his personality itself, as by hatred, is a failure against charity; but to attack him be undermining the supports of his human dignity, as by robbery, is a failure against justice. The same thing is true in the field of social morality. The human community, as such, shows forth the perfections of God in ways that are not open to individuals. This fact is very clearly stated in paragraph 30 of the Encyclical Divini Redemptoris : “In a further sense it is society which affords the opportunity for the development of all the individuals and social gifts bestowed on human nature. These natural gifts have a value surpassing the immediate interests of the moment, for in society the reflect a Divine Perfection, which would not be true were man to live alone.” Society itself, therefore, as thus revealing further the perfection of God in His creatures, is worthy of love: of a love directed not only towards the individuals who compose the society, but also toward their union with each other. This love is social charity. Moreover, as society thus makes available to man the further perfection of his potentialities of mirroring the Divine Perfection, it is also a support for these perfections, and hence is an object of the virtue of justice. This justice, Social Justice, which is directed at the Common Good itself, requires that the society be so organized as to be in fact a vehicle for human perfection. [“The Dignity of the Human Personality: Basis of a Theory of Justice,” Chapter III of Introduction to Social Justice , Paulist Press, 1948, pp. 24-25.]

Ferree S.M. Ph.D., William.

The direct loss to France caused by the Pébrine in seventeen years cannot be estimated at less than fifty millions sterling; and if we add to this what Redi's idea, in Pasteur's hands, has done for the wine-grower and for the vinegar-maker; and try to capitalise its value, we shall find that it will go a long way towards repairing; the money losses caused by the frightful and calamitous war of this autumn (1870). And as to the equivalent of Redi's thought in life, how can we overestimate the value of that knowledge of the nature of epidemic and epizootic diseases, and consequently of the means of checking, or eradicating them, the dawn of which has assuredly commenced?

T. H. Huxley     Aphorisms and Reflections from the Works of T. H. Huxley

Vilius argentium est auro, virtutibus aurum=--Silver is of less value than gold, gold than virtue.

Horace.

The mind of the painter must be like unto a mirror, which ever takes the colour of the object it reflects, and contains as many images as there are objects before it. Therefore realize, O painter, that thou canst not succeed unless thou art the universal master of imitating by thy art every variety of nature's forms, and this thou canst not do save by perceiving them and retaining them in thy mind; wherefore when thou walkest in the country let thy mind play on various objects, observe now this thing and now that thing, making a store of various objects selected and chosen from those of lesser value. And thou shalt not do as some painters, who, when weary of plying {103} their fancy, dismiss their work from their mind and take exercise in walking for relaxation, but retain fatigue in the mind, which, though they see various objects, does not apprehend them, but often when they meet friends and relations and are saluted by them, they are no more conscious of them than if they had met empty air.

Leonardo da Vinci     Thoughts on Art and Life

Liberty is of more value than any gifts; and to receive gifts is to lose it. Be assured that men most commonly seek to oblige thee only that they may engage thee to serve them.

_Saadi._

If you would know the value of money, go and try to borrow some; for he that goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing.--_Franklin._

Maturin M. Ballou     Pearls of Thought

Let ignorance talk as it will, learning has its value.

J. DE LA FONTAINE. 1621-1695.     _The Use of Knowledge. Book viii. Fable 19._

To look at things as well as we can, to inscribe them in our memory, to be observant, and let no day pass without gathering something; then to apply one's self to those branches of knowledge which give the mind a sure direction, to apportion everything its place, to assign to everything its value (in my opinion a genuine philosophy and a fundamental mathesis), this is what we have now to do.

_Goethe._

The alchemists in their search for gold discovered other things of greater value.

_Schopenhauer._

There is nothing of permanent value (putting aside a few human affections), nothing that satisfies quiet reflection--except the sense of having worked according to one's capacity and light, to make things clear and get rid of cant and shams of all sorts. That was the lesson I learned from Carlyle's books when I was a boy, and it has stuck by me all my life.

T. H. Huxley     Aphorisms and Reflections from the Works of T. H. Huxley

A stockbroker urged me to buy a stock that would triple its value every year. I told him, "At my age, I don't even buy green bananas." ― Claude Pepper

Funny quote of unknown origin

I don't like people who have never fallen or stumbled. Their virtue is lifeless and it isn't of much value. Life hasn't revealed its beauty to them.

Boris Pasternak

The annual produce of the land and labor of any nation can be increased to its value by no other means, but by increasing either the number of its productive labourers, or the productive powers of those labourers who before had been employed…. The productive powers of the same number of labourers cannot be increased, but in consequence of an increase in capital or the funds destined for maintaining them. The productive powers of the same number of labourers cannot be increased, but in consequence of either some addition and improvement of those machines and instruments which facilitate and abridge labour…. [ The Wealth of Nations , Book Two, Chapter Three, Modern Library: New York, p.326.]

Smith, Adam.

Oikonomia is the science or art of efficiently producing, distributing, and maintaining concrete use values for the household and community over the long run. Chrematistics is the art of maximizing the accumulation by individuals of abstract exchange value in the form of money in the short run.

Wendell Berry

Many caregivers share that they often feel alone, isolated, and unappreciated. Mindfulness can offer renewed hope for finding support and value for your role as a caregiver…It is an approach that everyone can use. It can help slow you down some so you can make the best possible decisions for your care recipient. It also helps bring more balance and ease while navigating the caregiving journey.

Nancy L. Kriseman

He who incites soldiers to courage in action is of more value than a thousand fighting men.

John Wortabet     Arabian Wisdom

~Proof.~--In the eyes of a wise judge proofs by reasoning are of more value than witnesses.--_Cicero._

Maturin M. Ballou     Pearls of Thought

Honours, like impressions upon coin, may give an ideal and local value to a bit of base metal; but gold and silver will pass all the world over, without any other recommendation than their own weight.

_Sterne._

Try not to become just a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.

Albert Einstein

The inquiry into the truth or falsehood of a matter of history is just as much a question of pure science as the inquiry into the truth or falsehood of a matter of geology, and the value of evidence in the two cases must be tested in the same way. If anyone tells me that the evidence of the existence of man in the miocene epoch is as good as that upon which I frequently act every day of my life, I reply that this is quite true, but that it is no sort of reason for believing in the existence of miocene man.

T. H. Huxley     Aphorisms and Reflections from the Works of T. H. Huxley

Great is wisdom; infinite is the value of wisdom. It cannot be exaggerated; it is the highest achievement of man.

_Carlyle._

For when it is in the hope of making a priceless discovery that we desire to receive certain impressions from nature or from works of art, we have qualms lest our soul imbibe inferior impressions which might lead us to form a false estimate of the value of Beauty.

Marcel Proust

You think because he doesn't love you that you are worthless. You think that because he doesn't want you anymore that he is right -- that his judgement and opinion of you are correct. If he throws you out, then you are garbage. You think he belongs to you because you want to belong to him. Don't. It's a bad word, 'belong.' Especially when you put it with somebody you love. Love shouldn't be like that. Did you ever see the way the clouds love a mountain? They circle all around it; sometimes you can't even see the mountain for the clouds. But you know what? You go up top and what do you see? His head. The clouds never cover the head. His head pokes through, beacuse the clouds let him; they don't wrap him up. They let him keep his head up high, free, with nothing to hide him or bind him. You can't own a human being. You can't lose what you don't own. Suppose you did own him. Could you really love somebody who was absolutely nobody without you? You really want somebody like that? Somebody who falls apart when you walk out the door? You don't, do you? And neither does he. You're turning over your whole life to him. Your whole life, girl. And if it means so little to you that you can just give it away, hand it to him, then why should it mean any more to him? He can't value you more than you value yourself.

Toni Morrison

Since we have concluded that the utmost extent of the comprehension of poetry is for the blind, and that of painting for the deaf, we will say that the value of painting exceeds that of poetry in proportion as painting gratifies a nobler sense than poetry does, and this nobility has been proved to be equal to that of three other senses, because we elect to lose our sense of hearing, smell and touch rather than our eyesight. For he who loses his sight is deprived of the beauty of the universe, and is like to one who is confined during his lifetime in a tomb, in which he enjoys life and motion.

Leonardo da Vinci     Thoughts on Art and Life

We are fools if we rest content with the society of those like ourselves; miserable as we are, powerless as we are, they will not aid us, we shall die alone. We ought therefore to act as though we were alone, and should we in that case build superb mansions, etc.? We should search for truth unhesitatingly, and if we refuse it, we show that we value the esteem of men more than the search for truth.

Blaise Pascal     The Thoughts of Blaise Pascal

Every man willingly gives value to the praise which he receives, and considers the sentence passed in his favour as the sentence of discernment.

_Johnson._

You don’t really understand people until you hear their life story. If you know their stories, you grasp their history, their hurts, their hopes and aspirations. You put yourself in their shoes. And just by virtue of listening and remembering what’s important to them, you communicate that you care and desire to add value.

John C. Maxwell

To the labor of man alone he (Smith) ascribes the power of producing values. This is an error. A more exact analysis demonstrates…that all the values are derived from the operation of labor, or rather from the industry of man, combined with the operation of those agents which nature and capital furnish him. Dr. Smith did not, therefore, obtain a thorough knowledge of the most important phenomenon in production; this has led him into erroneous conclusions, such, for instance, as attributing a gigantic influence to the division of labor, or rather to the separation of employments. This influence, however, is by no means inappreciable or even inconsiderable; but the greatest wonders of this description are not so much owing to any peculiar property in human labor, as to the use we make of the powers of nature. His ignorance of this principle precluded him from establishing the true theory of machinery in relation to the production of wealth (italics supplied). [Say’s critique of Smith and labor theory of value in J.B. Say, A Treatise on Political Economy (1830) 6 th American edition, pp. xl-xli. Cited in Robert Ashford and Rodney Shakespeare, Binary Economics: The New Paradigm (University Press of America, 1999), pp.100-101.]

Say, Jean Baptiste.

Of all the dangerous mental habits, that which schoolboys call "cocksureness" is probably the most perilous; and the inestimable value of metaphysical discipline is that it furnishes an effectual counterpoise to this evil proclivity. Whoso has mastered the elements of philosophy knows that the attribute of unquestionable certainty appertains only to the existence of a state of consciousness so long as it exists; all other beliefs are mere probabilities of a higher or lower order. Sound metaphysic is an amulet which renders its possessor proof alike against the poison of superstition and the counter-poison of shallow negation; by showing that the affirmations of the former and the denials of the latter alike deal with matters about which, for lack of evidence, nothing can be either affirmed or denied.

T. H. Huxley     Aphorisms and Reflections from the Works of T. H. Huxley

When we invoke the soul we move from the realm of information to the more vital realm of wisdom, the attainment of which is the only true value of learning. [ The Wall Street Journal , May 25, 1975.]

Fuller, Edmund.

A pledged word has the same value as a debt.

John Wortabet     Arabian Wisdom

I know that many will say that this work is useless, and these are they of whom Demetrius said recked no more of the breath which made the words proceed from their mouth, than of the wind which proceeded from their body,--men who seek solely after riches and bodily satisfaction, men entirely denuded of that wisdom which is the food and verily the wealth of the soul; because insomuch as the soul is of greater value than the body, so much greater are the riches of the soul than those of the body. And often when I see one of these take this work in his hand, I wonder whether, like a monkey, he will not smell it and ask me if it is something to eat.

Leonardo da Vinci     Thoughts on Art and Life

Do not trouble yourself too much about the light on your statue; the light of the public square will test its value.

_Michael Angelo to a young sculptor._

Age is just a number, and agelessness means not buying into the idea that a number determines everything from your state of health to your attractiveness to your value.

Christiane Northrup

The fraction of life can be increased in value not so much by increasing your numerator as by lessening your denominator. Nay, unless my algebra deceives me, unity itself divided by zero will give infinity.

_Carlyle._

There is no loss / In being small; great bulks but swell with dross. / Man is heaven's masterpiece; if it appear / More great, the value's less; if less, more dear.

_Quarles._

Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Oscar Wilde

The height of ability consists in a thorough knowledge of the real value of things, and of the genius of the age we live in.

La Rochefoucauld.

Non magni pendis, quia contigit=--You do not value it highly because it has been your lot.

Horace.

What we have we prize not to the worth, / Whiles we enjoy it; but being lack'd and lost, / Why then we rack the value.

_Much Ado_, iv. 1.

Today, there are too many points of view of equal value and prestige, each showing the relativity of the other, to permit us to take any one position and to regard it as impregnable and absolute. Only this socially disorganized intellectual situation makes possible the insight, hidden until now by a generally stable social structure and the practicability of certain traditional norms, that every point of view is particular to a social situation.

Karl Mannheim

The value of a principle is the number of things it will explain; and there is no good theory of disease which does not at once suggest a cure.--_Emerson._

Maturin M. Ballou     Pearls of Thought

Our attention is here drawn to a danger which is preeminently one of this day: the intense activity of our times may lead to zeal in service _to the neglect of personal communion_; but such neglect will not only lessen the value of the service, but tend to incapacitate us for the highest service.--_J. Hudson Taylor._

Various     Thoughts for the Quiet Hour

That which we have we prize not to the worth; / But being lacked and lost, why then we rake its value.

_Much Ado_, iv. 1.

The value of a program is proportional to the weight of its output.

Unknown

Whatever is known to thyself alone has always very great value.

_Emerson._

The mystery of the Cross does not simply confront us; rather, it draws us in and gives a new value to our life. This existential aspect of the new concept of worship and sacrifice appears with particular clarity in the twelfth chapter of the Letter to the Romans: “I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual

Pope Benedict XVI

Manners must adorn knowledge, and smooth its way through the world. Like a great rough diamond, it may do very well in a closet by way of curiosity, and also for its intrinsic value.

_Chesterfield._

The value of a thing is its life-giving power.

_Ruskin._

Style is what gives value and currency to thought.

_Amiel._

It so falls out, / That what we have we prize not to the worth / Whiles we enjoy it; but being lack'd and lost, / Why then we rack the value.

_Much Ado_, iv. 1.

It is with ideas as with pieces of money; those of least value generally circulate the best.

_Punch._

Eher schatzet man das Gute / Nicht, als bis man es verlor=--We do not learn to value our blessings till we have lost them.

_Herder._

"The value of marriage is not that adults produce children, but that children

produce adults."

A single act of resignation to the divine will in what it ordains contrary to our desires, is of more value than a hundred thousand successes conformable to our will and taste.--ST. VINCENT DE PAUL.

Various     Thoughts and Counsels of the Saints for Every Day of the Year

What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Oscar Wilde

For it so falls out That what we have we prize not to the worth Whiles we enjoy it, but being lack'd and lost, Why, then we rack the value; then we find The virtue that possession would not show us Whiles it was ours.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 1564-1616.     _Much Ado about Nothing. Act iv. Sc. 1._

The promises of this world are, for the most part, vain phantoms; and to confide in one's self, and become something of worth and value, is the best and safest course.

_Michael Angelo._

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