#usefulness

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. If one is not cognizant of this difference and holds that an individual’s value stems only from his present usefulness, then, believe me, one owes it only to personal inconsistency not to plead for euthanasia along the lines of Hitler’s program, that is to say, ‘mercy’ killing of all those who have lost their social usefulness, be it because of old age, incurable illness, mental deterioration, or whatever handicap they may suffer. Confounding the dignity of man with mere usefulness arises from conceptual confusion that in turn may be traced back to the contemporary nihilism transmitted on many an academic campus and many an analytical couch. ↗

— Viktor E. Frankl

#existentialism #human-dignity #meaning #nihilism #usefulness

I do think that art that doesn't communicate is useless. ↗

— William Golding

#communication #usefulness #art

We are so obsessed with doing that we have no time and no imagination left for being. As a result, men are valued not for what they are but for what they do or what they have - for their usefulness. ↗

— Thomas Merton

#doing #imagination #left #men #obsessed

Usefulness! It is not a fascinating word, and the quality is not one of which the aspiring spirit can dream o' nights, yet on the stage it is the first thing to aim at. ↗

— Ellen Terry

#aspiring #dream #fascinating #first #first thing

Well-meaning, helpful, good-natured attitudes of mind have not come to be honored on account of their usefulness, but because they are states of richer souls that are capable of bestowing and have their value in the feeling of the plenitude of life. ↗

— Friedrich Nietzsche

#good-natured #helpful #life #plenitude #richness

My writing practice taught me the important thing is steadfastness. It's not necessarily discipline. Discipline can become a prison. When your spiritual practices become another thing for you to be anxious about, they've lost their usefulness. ↗

— Elizabeth Gilbert

#another #anxious #become #discipline #important

The usefulness of cow-peas and soy-beans as human food has been recognized only recently in this country. ↗

— David F. Houston

#country #food #human #only #recently

There is no excellence without labor. One cannot dream oneself into either usefulness or happiness. ↗

— Liberty Hyde Bailey

#dream #either #excellence #happiness #into

Guided only by their feeling for symmetry, simplicity, and generality, and an indefinable sense of the fitness of things, creative mathematicians now, as in the past, are inspired by the art of mathematics rather than by any prospect of ultimate usefulness. ↗

— E. T. Bell

#art #creative #feeling #fitness #generality

The vulgar crowd values friends according to their usefulness. ↗

— Ovid

#crowd #friends #their #usefulness #values