Values Quotes

“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

“Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny.”
― Gandhi

“For me, I am driven by two main philosophies: know more today about the world than I knew yesterday and lessen the suffering of others. You'd be surprised how far that gets you.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson

“Don't waste your love on somebody, who doesn't value it.”
― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

“Tell me what you pay attention to and I will tell you who you are.”
― José Ortega y Gasset

“Inventory:

"Four be the things I am wiser to know:
Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.
Four be the things I'd been better without:
Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.
Three be the things I shall never attain:
Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.
Three be the things I shall have till I die:
Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.”
― Dorothy Parker, The Complete Poems of Dorothy Parker

“Here is your country. Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural resources, cherish the history and romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your children's children. Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches or its romance.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“Your time is way too valuable to be wasting on people that can't accept who you are.”
― Turcois Ominek

“What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.”
― Thomas Paine, The American Crisis

“Possessions, outward success, publicity, luxury - to me these have always been contemptible. I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best for both the body and the mind.”
― Albert Einstein

“Hide yourself in God, so when a man wants to find you he will have to go there first.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“Mathematics expresses values that reflect the cosmos, including orderliness, balance, harmony, logic, and abstract beauty.”
― Deepak Chopra

“A highly developed values system is like a compass. It serves as a guide to point you in the right direction when you are lost.”
― Idowu Koyenikan, Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability

“There is strange comfort in knowing that no matter what happens today, the Sun will rise again tomorrow.”
― Aaron Lauritsen, 100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip

“If you will practice being fictional for a while, you will understand that fictional characters are sometimes more real than people with bodies and heartbeats.”
― Richard Bach, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

“I’ve seen the anointing at work time and time again—people healed, oppression lifted, and lives completely transformed in an instant.”
― Kathryn Krick, Unlock Your Deliverance: Keys to Freedom From Demonic Oppression

“Before you call yourself a Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu or any other theology, learn to be human first.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people."

[Remarks on the 20th Anniversary of the Voice of America; Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, February 26, 1962]”
― John F. Kennedy

“There are so many wild animals on the property. It makes the ashram Noah’s Arkish. All the wildlife is intact; watching the animals adds to the safety and rescue aspects of the ashram. The ashram’s pristine environment along with
its celibacy policy and abundance of food is like a Garden of Eden. Like starting over! You forget about sex and spending your whole paycheck on organic apples.”
― Tom Hillman, Digging for God

“The struggles we endure today will be the ‘good old days’ we laugh about tomorrow.”
― Aaron Lauritsen, 100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip

“Were all the geniuses of history to focus on this single theme, they could never fully express their bafflement at the darkness of the human mind. No person would give up even an inch of their estate, and the slightest dispute with a neighbor can mean hell to pay; yet we easily let others encroach on our lives—worse, we often pave the way for those who will take it over. No person hands out their money to passersby, but to how many do each of us hand out our lives! We’re tight-fisted with property and money, yet think too little of wasting time, the one thing about which we should all be the toughest misers.”
― Seneca, On the Shortness of Life: Life Is Long if You Know How to Use It

“Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing;
’twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.”
― William Shakespeare, Othello

“Don't let your special character and values, the secret that you know and no one else does, the truth - don't let that get swallowed up by the great chewing complacency.”
― Aesop

“They will envy you for your success, your wealth, for your intelligence, for your looks, for your status - but rarely for your wisdom.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

“The condition of your soul will determine the condition of your life. Because it determines how you think, what you feel, and what you choose to do.”
― Gregory Dickow, Soul Cure: How to Heal Your Pain and Discover Your Purpose

“I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance: An Excerpt from Collected Essays, First Series

“Values aren't buses... They're not supposed to get you anywhere. They're supposed to define who you are.”
― Jennifer Crusie

“Only men would think of cutting themselves to determine who the packleader is. Idiots.”
― Christopher Paolini, Brisingr

“What is she looking for?  She thought she had found it with Kyle.  But maybe she hadn’t. Perhaps she was looking for stability, security, sameness because her growing-up years had seemed so fragmented, and she often felt unsure of how she fit in.  Maybe stability isn’t all she is looking for.”
― Dawn Chalker, Lost and Found

“You have a hierarchy of values; pleasure is at the bottom of the ladder, and you speak with a little thrill of self-satisfaction, of duty, charity, and truthfulness. You think pleasure is only of the senses; the wretched slaves who manufactured your morality despised a satisfaction which they had small means of enjoying. You would not be so frightened if I had spoken of happiness instead of pleasure: it sounds less shocking, and your mind wonders from the sty of Epicurus to his garden. But I will speak of pleasure, for I see that men aim at that, and I do not know that they aim at happiness. It is pleasure that lurks in the practice of every one of your virtues. Man performs actions because they are good for him, and when they are good for other people as well they are thought virtuous: if he finds pleasure in giving alms he is charitable; if he finds pleasure in helping others he is benevolent; if he finds pleasure in working for society he is public-spirited; but it is for your private pleasure that you give twopence to a beggar as much as it is for my private pleasure that I drink another whiskey and soda. I, less of a humbug than you, neither applaud myself for my pleasure nor demand your admiration.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage