Diminishing Marginal Utility

Famous quotes containing the words diminishing, marginal and/or utility:

    “To higher or lower ends, they [the majority of mankind] move too often with something of a sad countenance, with hurried and ignoble gait, becoming, unconsciously, something like thorns, in their anxiety to bear grapes; it being possible for people, in the pursuit of even great ends, to become themselves thin and impoverished in spirit and temper, thus diminishing the sum of perfection in the world, at its very sources.”
    —Walter Pater (1839–1894)

    “In realms of knowledge, we bequeath our books,
    And woe pursue who to a master quotes
    The funnier of our witty marginal notes.”
    —Philip Larkin (1922–1986)

    “Moral sensibilities are nowadays at such cross-purposes that to one man a morality is proved by its utility, while to another its utility refutes it.”
    —Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)