William Faulkner Quotes

The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster.

As to what we call the masses and the common men—there are no common men. All men are at last of a size.

And then many things became very clear... we learned perfectly that the life of a single human being is worth millions of times more than all the property of the richest man on earth.

Do you know the only value life has is what life puts upon itself? And it is of course overestimated, for it is of necessity prejudiced in its own favour. Take that man I had aloft. He held on as if he were a precious thing, a treasure beyond diamonds of rubies. To you? No. To me? Not at all. To himself? Yes. But I do not accept his estimate. He sadly overrates himself. There is plenty more life demanding to be born. Had he fallen and dripped his brains upon the deck like honey from the comb, there would have been no loss to the world. The supply is too large.

We're all human, aren't we? Every human life is worth the same, and worth saving.

You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else.

And the world said, Child, you will not be missed. You are cheaper than a wrench, your back is a road; Your death is a table in a book. You had our wit, our heart was sealed to you: Man is the judgment of the world.

Nobody can claim the name of Pedro, nobody is Rosa or María, all of us are dust or sand, all of us are rain under rain. They have spoken to me of Venezuelas, of Chiles and Paraguays; I have no idea what they are saying. I know only the skin of the earth and I know it has no name.

And every human being is precious.

What constitutes a real, live human being is more of a mystery than ever these days, and men each one of whom is a valuable, unique experiment on the part of nature are shot down wholesale.

Every life is precious.

The modern meaning of life's end-when does it end? How does it end? How should it end? What is the value of life? How do we measure it?

I think life is precious from beginning to end.

Wherever there is a human being, I see God-given rights inherent in that being, whatever may be the sex or complexion.

One life is worth the universe. Poe was able to go right into the very depth of life and to demonstrate this.

Although we will both die, and life is utterly meaningless, my time is vastly more important than yours.

Most people believe, more or less, that the value of a human life is the same, irrespective of where on the planet it happens to find itself. But, of course, not every life has the same value for us.

Every life is precious.

To re-establish faith in fundamental human rights, in the sanctity and ultimate value of human personality, in the equal rights of men and women of nations large and small.

For our part we regard all human life as equally sacred, whether it be the life of an Empress or the life of a charwoman, and we have no desire to emulate our contemporaries in their attempt to magnify the horror of a crime because the victim belonged to the former rank of life rather than the latter.

How can anyone think so insanely that the human life has the same value and, the same morality, independent of numbers? It is lucid to me that every time a new child is born, the value of every human in the world decreases slightly. It is obvious to me that the morality of the population explosion is wholly unlike than when man was a sparse, noble species in its beginning.

I free slaves because I believe we are all created equal. I just can't think of anything that has a higher purpose than putting value on human life.

From death's perspective, there are no differences between people; there are no presidents or flight attendants, no faiths or nations. There is just the person, always dear.

Lots of different ways to live and lots of different ways to die. But in the end that doesn't make a bit of difference. All that remains is a desert.