Quotes about Value

But today's society is characterized by achievement orientation, and consequently it adores people who are successful and happy and, in particular, it adores the young. It virtually ignores the value of all those who are otherwise, and in so doing blurs the decisive difference between being valuable in the sense of dignity and being valuable in the sense of usefulness.

I had intended to write this book anonymously, using my prison number only. But when the manuscript was completed, I saw that as an anonymous publication it would lose half its value

When the impossibility of replacing a person is realized, it allows the responsibility which a man has for his existence and its continuance to appear in all its magnitude. A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the "why" for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any "how.

Do not judge the life history of a particular person by the number of pages in the book that portrays it but only by the richness of the content it contains.

Under the influence of a world which no longer recognized the value of human life and human dignity, which had robbed man of his will and had made him an object to be exterminated (having planned, however, to make full use of him first—to the last ounce of his physical resources)—under this influence the personal ego finally suffered a loss of values.

What is actually man's concern is not to fulfill himself or to actualize himself but to fulfill meaning and to realize value. And only to the extent to which he fulfills concrete and personal meaning of his own existence will he also fulfill himself. Self-fulfillment occurs by itself; not through intention but as effect.

The majority of prisoners suffered from a kind of inferiority complex. We all had once been or had fancied ourselves to be 'somebody.' Now we were treated like complete nonentities (The consciousness of one's inner value is anchored in higher, more spiritual things, and cannot be shaken by camp life. But how many free men, let alone prisoners, possess it?)

Roses, she thought sardonically, All trash, m'dear.

The value of education is among the greatest of all human values.

'Twould be as much as my life was worth.

I am the only child of parents who weighed, measured, and priced everything; for whom what could not be weighed, measured, and priced had no existence.

You talk very easily of hours, sir! How long do you suppose, sir, that an hour is to a man who is choking for want of air?