P. J. O'Rourke Quotes

Things are worth what they will fetch at a sale.

The value of a thing is what that thing will bring. -Legal Maxim

Value is what people are willing to pay for it.

Every thing receives a value from its use, and the Value is raised [or lowered], according to its Quality, Quantity and Demand.

In stating the principles which regulate exchangeable value and price, we should carefully distinguish between those variations which belong to the commodity itself, and those which are occasioned by a variation in the medium in which value is estimated, or price expressed.

It's a market economy. Apparently the demand for great coaches exceeds the supply, so of course the price of good coaches is going to be high.

That iPad you just bought. Do you care that it cost a few pence to manufacture? No. It's cost you several hundred pounds because somebody else was willing to pay that much for it. If they weren't... it wouldn't.

If we give something value, it becomes valuable.

The price of ability does not depend on merit but on supply and demand.

The object of the law of value is to elucidate the actual exchange relations of commodities.

Value is consequently the necessary theoretical starting point whence we can elucidate the peculiar phenomenon of prices resulting from capitalist competition.

The realistic value of a work is completely independent of its properties in terms of content.

Teach a parrot the terms 'supply and demand' and you've got an economist.

The money wanted by the public must be purchased at its market price.

The value of money comes from the private sector in the form of price for product, services rendered, what people are willing to pay for something they want or need. That's where value happens. Government has nothing to do with that.

Everything does not have to be a commodity.

Valuation is what people are willing to pay.

Economists tell us that the 'price' of an object and its 'value' have very little or nothing to do with one another. 'Value' is entirely subjective economic value, anyway while 'price' reflects whatever a buyer is willing to give up to get the object in question, and whatever the seller is willing to accept to give it up. Both are governed by the Law of Marginal Utility, which is actually a law of psychology, rather than economics. For government to attempt to dictate a 'fair price' betrays complete misunderstanding of the entire process.

We might as well reasonably dispute whether it is the upper or the under blade of a pair of scissors that cuts a piece of paper, as whether value is governed by demand or supply.

We know what things cost but have no idea what they are worth.

The quantity of money, which is readily parted with to obtain a thing is called its price.

It is not that pearls fetch a high price because men have dived for them; but on the contrary, men have dived for them because they fetch a high price.

Value is the life-giving power of anything; cost, the quantity of labour required to produce it; its price, the quantity of labourwhich its possessor will take in exchange for it.

Value is not determined by those who set the price. Value is determined by those who choose to pay it.

Value, therefore, does not stalk about with a label describing what it is.