Diminishing Returns Quotes

This demand is valuable in various ways. In the first place it diminishes pleasure while increasing desire. The pleasure of novelty is by its very nature more subject than any other to the law of diminishing returns. And continued novelty costs money, so that the desire for it spells avarice or unhappiness or both. And again, the more rapacious this desire, the sooner it must eat up all the innocent sources of pleasure and pass on to those the Enemy forbids. Thus ~ C.S. Lewis

Actually, the "leap of faith" - to give it the memorable name that Soren Kierkegaard bestowed upon it - is an imposture. As he himself pointed out, it is not a "leap" that can be made once and for all. It is a leap that has to go on and on being performed, in spite of mounting evidence to the contrary. This effort is actually too much for the human mind, and leads to delusions and manias. Religion understands perfectly well that the "leap" is subject to sharply diminishing returns, which is why it often doesn't in fact rely on "faith" at all but instead corrupts faith and insults reason by offering evidence and pointing to confected "proofs." This evidence and these proofs include arguments from design, revelations, punishments, and miracles. Now that religion's monopoly has been broken, it is within the compass of any human being to see these evidences and proofs as the feeble-minded inventions that they are. ~ Christopher Hitchens

If somebody asked for the first draft of something I'd written, it'd probably be pretty close to whatever got published. I get enjoyment out of writing, but I get absolutely no enjoyment out of rewriting, so I don't do much of it. The more you work on something, certainly, the better it gets. But there's also a pretty clear law of diminishing returns. ~ Chuck Klosterman

The whole conflict thus boils down to a question of degree. We of the minority see a law of diminishing returns in progress; our opponents do not. ~ Aldo Leopold

The early masters also introduced walking meditation and hard work to the monastery, for too much sitting could reach the point of diminishing returns. ~ James H. Austin

Whenever you compete, trying harder is truly the game of diminishing returns and a losing one at that ~ Jan Garavaglia

I get diminishing returns when I bore myself in an interview. ~ Ben Harper

There is a parallel in this to arguments that we have heard in New York City in regard to health facilities that serve the rich and poor. There, too, we were told by doctors that the more exhaustive services provided to rich patients may not represent superior health care but a form of "overutilization" - again the theory of "diminishing returns." But here again it is not argued that the rich should therefore be denied this luxury, if that is what it is, but only that it shouldn't be extended to poor people. Affluent people, it has often been observed, seldom lack for arguments to deny to others the advantages that they enjoy. But it is going a step further for the Wall Street Journal to pretend that they are not advantages. ~ Jonathan Kozol

Truthfully, I don't like the binge-watching model. I think that if you give everybody everything all at once, there's very much a law of diminishing returns as far as their enjoyment of them. ~ Timothy Simons

The Law of Diminishing Returns is true of everything in life, except sex, which seems endlessly repeatable with effect. ~ Robert McKee

Idolatry is always subject to the law of diminishing returns. ~ Elyse M. Fitzpatrick

I indeed do respect all people for the positives in their life. Sadly, there comes a time of diminishing returns in the balance. At the end of the day, my respect is reserved for those solidly in the asset column of mankind. ~ Ted Nugent

The law of diminishing returns is something I really believe in. ~ Thomas Keller

Use between three and five photos in your gallery. Galleries with more photos are more competitive, but after five they seem to pass a point of saturation and diminishing return. ~ Amy Webb

If the Russians have gone too far in subjecting the child and his peer group to conformity to a single set of values imposed by the adult society, perhaps we have reached the point of diminishing returns in allowing excessive autonomy and in failing to utilize the constructive potential of the peer group in developing social responsibility and consideration for others. ~ Urie Bronfenbrenner

Kay very calmly and sweetly said, "You know, Pat, how much better do you think Lea Henry and Cindy Noble are going to get at this point?" She was saying ease up - it's enough. I had reached the point of diminishing returns. "I think they are both trying really hard to please you, but how much more can they possibly do?" she said. "I just wonder if you've really thought about that. ~ Pat Summitt

Morality, like other inputs into the social process, follows the law of diminishing returns- meaning ultimately, negative returns. People can be too moral. ~ Thomas Sowell

The pleasure of novelty is by its very nature more subject than any other to the laws of diminishing returns. ~ C.S. Lewis

"Extra effort," in whatever form it takes (mental, physical, emotional), cannot be sustained without eventual damage and diminishing returns. There has to be a very acute awareness on your part as to the level of exertion and the toll it's taking on those you lead. ~ Bill Walsh

Like the diminishing beauty returns for a facially paralyzed Botox addict, the more forcefully we attempt to stop the passage of time, the less available we are to the very moment we seek to preserve. ~ Douglas Rushkoff

Plateaus are a manifestation of the law of diminishing returns, and when we reach one it simply means that it is time to adjust our methods. ~ Chris Matakas

Yeah! "I love you" is subject to the law of diminishing returns; like one or two other critical weekly elements of a relationship, it loses a bit of thrilling value every time you get it out.' ... That's what happens with "I love you", that same phrase that you once shouted Hollywood or Heathcliff-like in the lashing raining, now- now you are saying it dumbly at the end of every phone conversation, a follow-on from," I'll be back for dinner." Once it came out spontaneous rush, it forced itself out; now it's reflex. ~ David Baddiel

How much more relevant could God be than to be a provider of food for life? What good is religion if it cannot feed the hungry? Satan was perilously and painfully close to a truth. But it was a half-truth, and a half-truth gets so interwoven with a lie that it becomes deadlier by the mix. Ask yourself this question: What kind of a following would result if the sole reason for the affection toward the leader is that he provides his followers with bread? Both motives would be wrong - for the provider and the receiver. These are the terms of reward and punishment that are mercenarily tainted and have diminishing returns, at best engendering compliance, but not love. Their appeal, too, is soon lost when offered as enticements or when withheld to engender fears. Dependence without commitment will ever look for ways to break the stranglehold. The ~ Ravi Zacharias

The one negative to horror is that it's always law of diminishing returns. When you go in the funhouse, the ride is never scary the second time. You will never have that pure experience as when you first watch it. ~ Eli Roth

Why hadn't he realized this before? Everyone knew that if you divided reality
by expectation, you got a happiness quotient. But when you inverted the equation-expectation
divided by reality-you didn't get the opposite of happiness. What you got, Lewis realized, was hope.
Pure logic: Assuming reality was constant, expectation had to be greater than reality to create
optimism. On the other hand, a pessimist was someone with expectations lower than reality, a
fraction of diminishing returns. The human condition meant that this number approached zero
without reaching it-you never really completely gave up hope; it might come flooding back at any
provocation. ~ Jodi Picoult

Many kids, particularly in lower-income families, would actually benefit from more structured activities. Plenty of children, especially teenagers, thrive on a busy schedule. But just as other trappings of modern childhood, from homework to technology, are subject to the law of diminishing returns, there is a danger of overscheduling the young. ~ Carl Honore

It is a central thesis of this book that centralization has reached diminishing returns and is no longer yielding any benefit. Instead, it has become the problem, not the solution; what worked in the past no longer works now. Centralization as a solution has been leapfrogged by decentralizing technologies. ~ Charles Hugh Smith

It is a certainty that Keegan would not have agreed to return unless Mike Ashley had committed to sanctioning a mammoth spending spree. The downside, which Keegan will soon discover, is the law of diminishing returns in a league that is now the richest in the world. The type of multi-million-pound investment that bankrolled the first Newcastle revival under Keegan is now two-a-penny. Buying success just isn't as easy as it used to be. The Premiership's paradox is that the more money there is, the more the art of management gains in value. ~ Pete Gill

Other composers have taken this particular technique much further than I in the meantime, with the result that the Law of Diminishing Returns has begun to apply. ~ Brian Ferneyhough

We're richer, but that wealth doesn't reflect durable, authentic economic value - which is hitting fast diminishing returns. The growth that we're pursuing is neither sustainable - nor is it, in many ways, real growth at all. Boardrooms from finance to autos to energy to pharma to fashion have learned that the hard way. ~ Umair Haque

As long as my heart's still in it, I'll keep going. If the passion's there, why stop? ...
There'll likely be a point of diminishing returns, a point where my strength will begin to wane. Until then, I'll just keep plodding onward, putting one foot in front of the other to the best of my ability. Smiling the entire time. ~ Dean Karnazes

Social values in general are incrementally variable: neither safety, diversity, rational articulation, nor morality is categorically a good thing to have more of, without limits. All are subject to diminishing returns, and ultimately negative returns. ~ Thomas Sowell

So, we experience life in terms of changes, we feel diminishing sensitivity to both gains and losses, and losses sting more than equivalently-sized gains feel good. ~ Richard H. Thaler

The process of falling apart (the Coyolxauhqui process), of being wounded, is a sort of shamanic initiatory dismemberment that gives suffering a spiritual and soulful value. The shaman's initiatory ordeal includes some type of death or dismemberment during the ecstatic trance journey. Torn apart into basic elements and then reconstructed, the shaman acquires the power of healing and returns to help the community. To be healed we must be dismembered, pulled apart. The healing occurs in disintegration, in the demotion of the ego as the self's only authority.20 By connecting with our wounding, the imaginal journey makes it worthwhile. Healing images bring back the pieces, heal las rajaduras. As Hillman notes, healing is a deep change of attitude that involves an adjustment and abandonment of "ego-heroics." It requires that we shift our perspective. La ~ Gloria E Anzaldua

No matter how skillful the trading scheme, over the long haul, abnormal returns are sustained only through abnormal exposure to risk. ~ Alan Greenspan

How do you know you were in samadhi? You know when your awareness returns to the plane of self and ideation that you have been beyond it. ~ Frederick Lenz

I'm hoping that hawk returns, and instead of snatching up poor helpless animals and children, it grabs you ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

Old and alone, thought Pelletier. Just one of thousands of old men on their own. Like the machine célibataire. Like the bachelor who suddenly grows old, or like the bachelor who, when he returns from a trip at light speed, finds the other bachelors grown old or turned into pillars of salt. Thousands, hundreds of thousands of machines célibataires crossing an amniotic sea each day, on Alitalia, eating spaghetti al pomodoro and drinking Chianti or grappa, their eyes half closed, positive that the paradise of retirees isn't in Italy (or, therefore, anywhere in Europe), bachelors flying to the hectic airports of Africa or America, burial ground of elephants. The great cemeteries at light speed. I don't know why I'm thinking this, thought Pelletier. Spots on the wall and spots on the skin, thought Pelletier, looking at his hands. Fuck the Serb. ~ Roberto Bolano

There is an invisible thought-stuff on which the mind acts, making things through the operation of a law not yet fully understood by man. Every thought moves upon this invisible substance in increasing or diminishing degree. When we praise the richness and fullness of God, this thought-stuff is tremendously increased in our mental atmosphere. It reflects into everything that our mind and our hands touch. ~ Charles Fillmore

For the artist, the color, the bouquet, the tinkling of the spoon on the saucer, are things in the highest degree. He stops at the quality of the sound or the form. He returns to it constantly and is enchanted with it. ~ Jean-Paul Sartre

He who, conscious of being strong, is content to be weak, he shall be the paragon of mankind. Being the paragon of mankind, Virtue will never desert him. He returns to the state of a little child. ~ Laozi

CHAPTER LVII MRS. MORTON RETURNS ~ Anthony Trollope

[A] man who lives alone...one day hears a knock on his door. When he answers, he sees The Tyrant outside, who asks, 'Will you submit?' The man says nothing. He steps aside. The Tyrant enters his home. The man serves him for years, until The Tyrant becomes sick from food poisoning and dies. The man wraps the body, takes it outside, returns to his home, closes the door behind him, and firmly answers, 'No.' (Loc. 5874) ~ Derrick Jensen

If women have an income, they will invest a higher proportion of that income in their children than men do. So you do get those societal returns very quickly. ~ Ann Cotton

The 5th Amendment guarantees that defendants can't face 'double jeopardy,' which means the government can't prosecute a person a second time for the same crime if the jury returns a verdict. Only if the jury doesn't reach a decision can prosecutors elect to retry the case. ~ Robert Shapiro

This has not, however, stopped their earnings from pushing back the boundaries of pure hypermathematics, and their chief research accountant has recently been appointed Professor of Neomathematics at the University of Maximegalon, in recognition of both his General and his Special Theories of Disaster Area Tax Returns, in which he proves that the whole fabric of the space-time continuum is not merely curved, it is in fact totally bent. ~ Douglas Adams

I read it twice, then I said, "Well, why don't you?"
"Why don't I what?"
"Why don't you wish her many happy returns? It doesn't seem much to ask."
"But she says on her birthday."
"Well, when is her birthday?"
"Can't you understand?" said Bobbie. "I've forgotten."
"Forgotten!" I said.
"Yes," said Bobbie. "Forgotten."
"How do you mean, forgotten?" I said. "Forgotten whether it's the twentieth or the twenty-first, or what? How near do you get to it?"
"I know it came somewhere between the first of January and the thirty-first of December. That's how near I get to it. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

The god of Judaism is the devil. The Jew will not be recognized by God as one of His chosen people until he abandons his demonic religion and returns to the faith of his fathers
the faith which embraces Jesus Christ and His Gospel. ~ David Chilton

One of the grave dangers inherent in the various stages of any theatrical career-whether it be budding, quiescent or diminishing-is the advice of friends. ~ Moss Hart

My strength returns to me with my cup of coffee and the reading of the psalms. ~ Dorothy Day

Still, when all is said, somewhere one must belong: even the soaring falcon returns to its master's wrist. ~ Truman Capote

It's nice to hear your voice…?" The statement came out sounding like a question, as though I
were playing jeopardy and I'd chosen my category-
'I'll take 'Charming Chit Chat' for $200, Alex' and behind the $200 read: 'This is what you say
to the hot guy- you abandoned- when he returns after you inexplicably leave him and his private
jet in Las Vegas after having amazing and multiple occurrences of the hot sex. ~ Penny Reid

The hardest thing for me is the sense of impermanence. All passes; nothing returns. ~ Ellen Glasgow

I just read a book on how to get control of my time and therefore of my life. My time has always had a tendency to slip away from me and do as it pleases. My life follows it, like a puppy after an untrained bird dog. Come night, my life shows up, usually covered with mud and full of stickers, exhausted but grinning happily. My time never returns. ~ Patrick F. McManus

Anderson's papers and slide shows have become more alarming. Under titles such as "Climate Change: Going Beyond Dangerous . . . Brutal Numbers and Tenuous Hope," he points out that the chances of staying within anything like safe temperature levels are diminishing fast. With his colleague Alice Bows-Larkin, an atmospheric physicist and climate change mitigation expert at the Tyndall Centre, Anderson argues that we have lost so much time to political stalling and weak climate policies - all while emissions ballooned - that we are now facing cuts so drastic that they challenge the core expansionist logic at the heart of our economic system. ~ Naomi Klein

Since then, at an uncertain hour,
That agony returns:
And till my ghastly tale is told,
This heart within me burns. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

As a human being, one of my preferences has been the calm infusing the sun at sunset (...) surrounded by a fatuous and fleeting glow. As an exhausted warrior who returns from a long battle to his homeland. ~ Efrat Cybulkiewicz

Only passions, and great passions, can raise the soul to great things. Without them there is no sublimity, either in morals or in creativity. Art returns to infancy, and virtue becomes small- minded. ~ Denis Diderot

The essence of investment management is the management of risks, not the management of returns. ~ Benjamin Graham

I am sure you know what an angel is: a soul that returns to this plane to protect the person they died to save, ~ Samantha Shannon

Its contempt for citizens ... is so routine, and so unlimited, that the agency has become a kind of Frankenstein, running wild and terrorizing Americans at will. The IRS hypocritically requires mistake-free returns when its own books are in shambles. It demands exorbitant sums of money without regard to the accuracy of its claims. It doesn't hesitate to use every possible maneuver to get what it wants, sometimes destroying businesses
and lives
in the process. ~ James Bovard

Redeemed and restored, love returns us to the promise of everlasting life. When we love we can let our hearts speak. ~ Bell Hooks

As you think a thought, it goes out into the ethers, where it gathers energy and then returns to you. It parallels the weather patterns on Earth, where your negative thoughts go out and gather negative energy, bringing the negativity back to you on its return trip. So ~ Dianne Robbins

But every one has a besetting sin to which he returns. ~ Jean De La Fontaine

It seems terror is a companion in the soft years when everything is new, and returns to us with age, as we acquire things to lose. ~ Mark Lawrence

Every single one of us appears seemingly from nowhere and then, eventually, returns to nowhere. We are conceived, we grow, and we die, but what happens beyond that is a great, haunting mystery. We grapple with it by marking how and when things change here on Earth, both cyclically and permanently. ~ Sasha Sagan

Perhaps he could see inside her, see what she was becoming even before she realized it herself. Saw her for what she is. A murderer. But each time remorse begins to invade her, break her will to hold herself together, the rage returns, almost as strong as the moment she opened the door to the prisoners' room. It overshadows the guilt. And the void grows. ~ Joe Hart

In the life of one man, never The same time returns. ~ T. S. Eliot

Here's a joke about discernment: A woman asks her local priest for advice. "Father," she says, "I have a little boy who is six months old. And I'm curious to know what he will be when he grows up." The priest says, "Place before him three things: a bottle of whiskey, a dollar bill, and a Bible. If he picks the bottle of whiskey, he'll be a bartender. If he picks the dollar bill, a business man. And if he picks the Bible, a priest." So the mother thanks him and goes home. The next week she returns. "Well," said the priest, "which one did he pick: the whiskey, the dollar bill, or the Bible?" She says, "He picked all three!" "Ah," says the priest, "a Jesuit! ~ James Martin

Where woman has taken her place in business she has found her method ready-shaped for her, and following that, she does her work,if with a certain amount of monotony, yet without undue fatigue. Her hours are fixed, and as a rule she gets needful change of scene as she goes to her business and returns to her home or the place where she lives. But the "home- maker" has not, nor can she have, any such change, and her hours are always from the rising of the sun beyond the going down of the same. ~ Anna Brackett

Childhood lasts all through life. It returns to animate broad sections of adult life ... Poets will help us to find this living childhood within us, this permanent, durable immobile world. ~ Gaston Bachelard

Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns. Faith also means reaching deeply within, for the sense one was born with, the sense, for example, to go for a walk. ~ Anne Lamott

The truth can sometimes be slow to reveal itself. The sun sets every night but returns the next day. El tiempo es un gran curador, time is a great healer. Is it not said that he is a great master who solves many things? ~ Hannah Fielding

You're shaking ... so am I. It's because of Jerusalem, isn't it? One doesn't go to Jerusalem, one returns to it. That's one of its mysteries. ~ Elie Wiesel

Unlike traditional retailers, Amazon boasted what was called a negative operating cycle. Customers paid with their credit cards when their books shipped but Amazon settled its accounts with the book distributors only every few months. With every sale, Amazon put more cash in the bank, giving it a steady stream of capital to fund its operations and expansion.14 The company could also lay claim to a uniquely high return on invested capital. Unlike brick-and-mortar retailers, whose inventories were spread out across hundreds or thousands of stores around the country, Amazon had one website and, at that time, a single warehouse and inventory. Amazon's ratio of fixed costs to revenue was considerably more favorable than that of its offline competitors. In other words, Bezos and Covey argued, a dollar that was plugged into Amazon's infrastructure could lead to exponentially greater returns than a dollar that went into the infrastructure of any other retailer in the world. ~ Brad Stone

someone who lends his book is stupid, but one who returns it is stupider ~ Darmanto Jatman

That is, no matther whether th' constitution follows th' flag or not, th' supreme coort follows th' iliction returns. ~ Finley Peter Dunne

An engaging discussion upon the nature of the soul, its defining qualities, the possibility it manifests a specific shape, the likelihood of its integrity beyond formaldehyde and flowers, speculation on its absence from an unfortunate sum of mortal beings since God, at the moment of creation, released into the universe a fixed number of souls to be recycled among a diminishing percentage of an exponentially expanding population, hence bodies without souls. ~ Stephen Wright

Left alone, I am overtaken by the northern void-no wind, no cloud, no track, no bird, only the crystal crescents between peaks, the ringing monuments of rock that, freed from the talons of ice and snow, thrust an implacable being into the blue. In the early light, the rock shadows on the snow are sharp; in the tension between light and dark is the power of the universe. This stillness to which all returns, this is reality, and soul and sanity have no more meaning than a gust of snow; such transience and insignificance are exalting, terrifying, all at once ... Snow mountains, more than sea or sky, serve as a mirror to one's own true being, utterly still, utterly clear, a void, an Emptiness without life or sound that carries in Itself all life, all sound. ~ Peter Matthiessen

The worse thing that can happen to anyone, worse than death itself, and the worst thing one can make others do, is to return from the place from which no one returns, to come back to life at the wrong time, when you are no longer expected, when it's too late and inappropriate, when the living have assumed you are over and done with and have continued or taken up their lives again, leaving no room for you at all. ~ Javier Marias