"Present worth" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had stolen a pair of patent-leather shoes for his wife. He had heard of a rich man who had given his betrothed such a pair of shoes, and he wanted to see what it was like, just for once, to give a really fine present—a present worth as much as one would earn in two weeks. This he had explained before the court. "Numbskull!" said Jeppe always, when the conversation touched upon Jacob; "for such a miserable louse suddenly to get a swollen head, to want to make big presents! And if it had been for his young woman ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... for the greater glory of Heaven and with stained-glass windows for the exaltation of the All Seeing—if, I say, you try to reckon up the debt on such a church and figure out its interest and its present worth, less a fixed annual payment, it makes a pretty complicated sum. Then if you try to add to this the annual cost of insurance, and deduct from it three-quarters of a stipend, year by year, and then suddenly remember that three-quarters ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... to him in Brazil was at its worst it is interesting to notice that a few, at any rate, of his own countrymen were remembering his past troubles and his present worth. On the 21st of June, Sir James Mackintosh, in one of the many speeches in the British House of Commons in which he nobly advocated the recognition of the independence of the South American states, both as a political ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... these returns. Therefore if he leaves this money in forest land for 50 years without return, for every dollar so tied up he must get $18.42 at the end of that period if he is to make 6 per cent on the investment. And this applies not only to the present value of the land, but also to any added expense he incurs in modifying his cutting methods, or in replanting, in order to insure reforestation. If both together amount to $5 an acre, he must net $92.10 at the end of his 50 years in order ...
— Practical Forestry in the Pacific Northwest • Edward Tyson Allen
... thousand pounds a week. And it was not forgotten that after the great fire of London, when the citizens were in deep distress, the Irish contributed twenty thousand fat cattle for their relief, which at their present value would amount to a sum greater than England and Europe sent to the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... "I say you can't fool me. These shares are worth seventeen dollars and eighty cents each. I want their market value, not their par value. I want one-quarter the present value of ...
— The Spirit of Sweetwater • Hamlin Garland
... by itself, and a place of some honour, as the one extant poem of considerable length in the group to which it belongs. It has a meaning and value apart from the questions of its origin and its mode of production. Its present value as a poem is not affected by proofs or arguments regarding the way in which it may have been patched or edited. The patchwork theory has no power to make new faults in the poem; it can only point out what faults exist, and draw inferences from them. It does not take away from any dignity the book ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... you are wrong, most noble Captain. Margaret has had a lawyer's letter, and she is residuary legatee—the legacies being about two thousand pounds, and the remainder about forty thousand, at the present value of property ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... the annexation will be payable in the same currency in which they may have been contracted; all uncancelled postage and other revenue stamps issued by the Government since the annexation will remain valid, and will be accepted at their present value by the future Government of the State; all licenses duly issued since the annexation will remain in force during the period for which they may ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... creates value, and a great increase in use forces an increase in value, provided that the supply does not increase equally fast; and with silver that is an impossibility. If you think government cannot add value to a metal, consider this conundrum: What would be the present value of gold if all nations should demonetize it? It can be calculated approximately. There is on hand enough gold to supply the arts for forty years at the present rate of consumption. What, then, is the present value of a commodity ...
— If Not Silver, What? • John W. Bookwalter
... enough improvements for the conduct of the type of farming it is proposed to develop can usually be purchased most advantageously. The purchaser should understand clearly that the previous cost of the improvements has no necessary relation to their present value, any more than the value of a second-hand suit of clothes is dependent upon its original cost. All depends on how badly they are worn and how well they are adapted to present conditions. The value of farm improvements is not unlike those in other business enterprises in this respect. ...
— The Young Farmer: Some Things He Should Know • Thomas Forsyth Hunt
... and six more are not specially representative of the best that is being done. But "Blind Vision," "The Unsent Letter," "His Escape," "The Boy's Mother" and "The Sixth Man" are now made accessible in book form, and give this anthology its present value. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... hold him still their friend, though an unmanageable one; and admit with praise what of more or less patriotic and Guelphic principle may be at the root of his disobedience. So when he claims twelve thousand lire,—roughly, some two thousand pounds of money at present value,—from the Guelphs of Arezzo for his service, and the Guelphs, having got no good of it, owing to this Florentine interference, object to paying him, the Florentines themselves lend them the money,—and are never paid a ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... justified the prophetic faith of its advocates that a century later many millions of dollars in excess of the purchase money were spent in commemorating the transfer of a tract of land without which the present greatness of the United States would not have been possible. The present value of the agricultural products alone of the area for one year are a hundred times, and the taxable wealth more than four hundred times, the ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... reservation at ten dollars per acre. To this they added later nearly as much more. Parts of this estate now lie within the corporate limits of Buffalo; and though they sold out and removed to the West before the land attained its present value, the purchase was a most fortunate one for them. Metz records that they had much trouble at first with the Indians; but they overcame this and other difficulties, and by industry and ingenuity soon built up comfortable ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... the accomplishment of this destructive wish. Before the invention of printing and paper, the labor and the materials of writing could be purchased only by the rich; and it may reasonably be computed that the price of books was a hundredfold their present value. Copies were slowly multiplied and cautiously renewed: the hopes of profit tempted the sacrilegious scribes to erase the characters of antiquity,[26] and Sophocles or Tacitus were obliged to resign the parchment to missals, homilies, and the Golden ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... who has very little or nothing to commence upon, especially if he be a gentleman born, and has only his hands to help him. He must put his pride in his pocket and learn to be content to be taken at his present value. If he does that he will find, that his birth and education will stand to him, and that no matter what occupation he may be forced to take up, if his life and conduct be manly and reliable he will command as much or more respect from his (for the time being) fellow workers ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... said, when Alain had finished. "M. Louvier had predetermined to possess himself of your estate: he makes himself mortgagee at a rate of interest so low, that I tell you fairly, at the present value of money, I doubt if you could find any capitalist who would accept the transfer of the mortgage at the same rate. This is not like Louvier, unless he had an object to gain, and that object is your land. The ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of a given number of new-born infants, one half, by the fault of nature or man, is extinguished before the age of puberty and reason,—a melancholy calculation!] I have now passed that age, and may fairly estimate the present value of my existence in the three-fold division of mind, ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... in the capture of Mexico and the overthrow of the Aztec power. The simple Mexicans, who had never seen a white man, first welcomed Cortez as the long expected Culture God, and the hapless Montezuma gathered as a present for the invader treasure equal in present value to the sum of six and a half million dollars. Most of this was lost in the lake during the fatal retreat from the city; but when the conqueror returned to Spain in 1528, he brought with him, to that very port of Palos where Columbus had landed in 1493, three hundred thousand pesos[1] ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... Consider, moreover, that there are long sweeps of coast north, south, and west of the Rock, from which torpedoes could be discharged at any ship that approached. Inquire further where on the Rock an aeroplane can land. And having ascertained these things, ask yourself what is the present value of Gibraltar? ...
— In The Fourth Year - Anticipations of a World Peace (1918) • H.G. Wells
... London; yet how great and certain must be the profits of a commodity to warrant the expenditure of such large capitals before there can be any return! It might seem too that a man possessed of sixty thousand pounds, or of as much as, at the present value of money, would purchase for ever the constant labour of from above sixty to eighty men, would have avoided the hazards of trade.—Yet in England it is not so—the avaricious spirit of commerce despises all mediocrity—care is preferred to enjoyment—and ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... some advantages, proceeded southward to the fen country, which they plundered and laid waste with fire and sword. Heavy fines were extorted from the rich abbeys; that on Crowland amounting to L64,000 of the present value of ...
— The New Guide to Peterborough Cathedral • George S. Phillips
... condensers, white cloud illuminators, prisms, parabolic condensers, polarizing apparatus, forceps, aquatic boxes, fishing-tubes, with a host of other articles, all of which would have been useful in the hands of an experienced microscopist, but, as I afterwards discovered, were not of the slightest present value to me. It takes years of practice to know how to use a complicated microscope. The optician looked suspiciously at me as I made these wholesale purchases. He evidently was uncertain whether to set me down as some scientific celebrity or a madman. I think he inclined to the latter belief. I suppose ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... the expectation of an event is considered as the present value, or worth, of whatsoever sum or thing is depending on the happening of that event. Therefore if the expectation on an event be divided by the value of the thing expected, on the happening of that event, the quotient will be the ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... thought and omissions of fact, you have added the dishonesty of the partisan historian and the false glamour of the picturesque one, you will be so good as to proceed to find the present value of history!' ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... his tenancy he had paid altogether nearly six hundred pounds in rent, more than double the amount of the present value of the house. Jack did not complain of this—in fact he was very well satisfied. He often said that Mr Sweater was a very good landlord, because on several occasions when, being out of work, he had been a few weeks behind with his rent the agent acting for the benevolent ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... principal business. He said there was a general prejudice against tobacco, in all the tide water regions of the State, because it was through the culture of tobacco that the once fertile soil had been impoverished; but he did not believe that, at the present value of negroes, their labor could be applied to the culture of grain with any profit, except under peculiarly favorable circumstances. Possibly the use of guano might make wheat a paying crop, but he still doubted. ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... in person; the latter went to L495, but the agent went L5 better, and secured the prize at the then unheard-of price of L500. At first Mr. Lenox declined to take the book, but eventually altered his mind, wisely as it proved, for although at long intervals copies are being unearthed, the present value of Mr. Lenox's copy cannot be much short of L4,000. During 1854 and 1855 Mr. Stevens bought books to the value of over 50,000 dollars for Mr. Lenox, and on reviewing the invoices of these two years, 'I am confident,' says Mr. ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... fisherman;[236] an act which taxed the manufacture of oil and fertilizer from herring at a higher rate than similar processing of other fish or fish offal;[237] an excess profits tax which defined "invested capital" with reference to the original cost of the property rather than to its present value;[238] and an undistributed profits tax in the computation of which special credits were allowed to certain taxpayers;[239] an estate tax upon the estate of a deceased spouse in respect of the moiety of the surviving ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... do; but they never told him. And Jamie went on, piling up his money. Three rolls were in the old chest now, and all of Spanish gold. Doubloons and pistoles were growing rarer, and the price was getting higher. But the old clerk was not content with replacing the present value to the credit of "Pirates" on the books; the actual pieces must be returned; so that if any earringed, whiskered buccaneer turned up to demand his money from James Bowdoin's Sons, he might have it back in specie, ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... foot to foot. It was his experience that when people with high-born names came to him by night mysteriously there was always profit in it for himself. And then, there was that title-deed. He had bought the house cheap, but its present value was five times what he gave for it. Its loss would mean more to him than the loss of a wife to some men—as Yasmini ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... of which His Majesty's Government are to a certain extent determined to avail themselves. But previous to deciding upon the extent of the establishment it is necessary that I should be informed of the present value of these Estates, of their capability of improvement and of the mode in which their revenues have ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan
... annual meeting of the stockholders of Horse's Neck to be held the following week at Wilmington, Delaware, and could avail themselves of the right to have their equity assessed under the laws of Delaware, but as the liabilities practically equaled the present value of the property that equity would naturally ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... on the north-west corner of Broadway and Chamber Street, now occupied in part by one of Delmonico's restaurants, was purchased by a New York citizen, but lately deceased, for the sum of $1,000: its present value is $125,000. A single Broadway lot, surveyed out of an estate which cost the late John Jay $500 per acre, was recently sold at auction for $80,000, and the purchaser has refused a rent of $16,000 per annum, or twenty per cent on his purchase-money, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... payments authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to issue bonds of either of the descriptions named in the act of Congress approved July 14, 1870, entitled "An act to authorize the refunding of the national debt," for not less than par in gold. With the present value of the 4-1/2 per cent bonds in the markets of the world, they could be exchanged at par for gold, thus strengthening the Treasury to meet final resumption and to keep the excess of coin over demand, pending its permanent use as a circulating medium, at home. All that would ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... intended for productive purposes. This is a consequence of the greater division of labor which causes unfinished products to be put on the market more and more frequently,—products which come to have a value only after some time, but which, when that time has elapsed, have present value. And, indeed, as the world advances and civilization grows, it becomes much easier to forecast the future with certainty. The future, also, then becomes more a source of solicitude, and fixed capital, as a consequence, plays a part which grows daily ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... squire 12 deniers or 1 sol, each knight 2 sols, each knight banneret 4 sols. 20 sols went to the pound, and although the exact value of money in those days relative to that which it bears at the present time is doubtful, it may be placed at twelve times the present value. Therefore each horse archer received an equivalent to 6s. a day, each squire 12s., each knight 24s., and each ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... going; to go about it?" questioned still another interested citizen. These men of Paloma had good reason for being interested. When the iron road was finished, Paloma would be an intimate part of the now outside world. It was certain that Paloma real estate would rise to three or four times its present value. ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock
... the capitalization and bonded indebtedness of the roads largely exceed the actual cost of their construction or their present value, and that unreasonable rates are charged in the effort to pay dividends on watered stock and ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... day was even one second shorter than it is at present; but centuries are not the units which we employ in tidal evolution. A million years ago it is quite probable that the divergence of the length of the day from its present value may have been very considerable. Let us take a glance back into the profound depths of times past, and see what the tides have to tell us. If the present order of things has lasted, the day must have been shorter and shorter the farther we look back into the dim past. The day is ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... to Shanghai cost twenty-two tael cents (at the present value of the tael this is equal to sixpence) for each Chinese character; but each word in any other language is charged double, that is, ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... who picked up a pencil from the table and made a few figures on a blotting pad; "the present value of a peso is twenty-eight cents. That would make the total damage eleven dollars and seventy-six cents in the currency of my country. Does President Yozarro ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... telling the truth. This was a little too much; the County Committee held a hasty meeting, and decided that it must be stopped; so I, Henry Barber, was sent for to make arrangements to that end. I knew something of Sam: had purchased him several times, and I estimated his present value at about one thousand dollars. This seemed to the committee a reasonable figure, and on my mentioning it to Sam he said "he thought that about the fair thing; it should never be said that the Bugle was a hard paper to deal with." There was, however, some delay in raising the money; the ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... notes, which the banks would at once discount; all sales of the meal to be lodged each day in the bank to the account of the promissory notes outstanding. On winding up the transaction the oatmeal would be at least worth its present value; and if sold at a small profit, enough to cover the expenses, there would be no necessity for calling in any portion of the subscriptions; but should there be a loss on the sale, the proportion to each subscriber, according to the amount of his subscription, ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... inevitable one. She has a certain description of persons recognized as property South of the Potomac, and West of the Mississippi, which would be no longer recognized as such, except within their own limits. This species of property would sink to one half of its present value, for it is Louisiana and the southwestern States which ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... Worship is therefore not an absolute value but a varying value, the content of any act of which will be determined by the nature of the object toward which it is directed. It is greatly like love in this respect; its nature is always the same, but its present value is determined by the object to which it is directed. We are to love the Lord our God, and we are also to love our neighbour; the nature of the love is in each case the same; and yet we are not to love our neighbour with the limitless self-surrender ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... wearisome toil. And then the blow fell. New York was claiming all this tract of land as part of her province, and declaring New Hampshire grants to be null and void. A second payment for their farms was demanded, based upon their present value as improved property. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... excellent road between the port and Adelaide, which convinced me that a portion of it might easily be converted into a railroad, as there is sufficient width for a single line of rails without detracting from its present value. That such an undertaking would prove of great advantage to the colony there can be no doubt; and it is equally certain that it would be profitable to those engaged in it. The exports and imports of South Australia are, year by year, rapidly increasing; and now that its vast mineral resources have ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... the buccaneering trade, which it knew to be very lucrative. For instance, Ralegh and eleven other adventurers in 1591 equipped, at a cost of L8000, privateers which brought home prizes worth L31,150. The profit to the partnership was L14,952, which must be multiplied five times to express the present value. In high places no repugnance to the pursuit was felt. The Queen not rarely adventured, and looked for the lion's share of the spoil. Robert Cecil, after he had succeeded to his father's ascendency, was willing to speculate, if ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... exceeds it. It were natural then to think that the Annual Production of twice as much as can be used, must reduce all to an Eighth Part of their present Prices; and thus this extended Island would not exceed one Fourth Part of its present Value, or pay more than one Fourth Part ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... contribution to that matchless edifice was the statue of Minerva, made of gold and ivory, forty feet in height, the gold of which alone was worth forty-four talents,—about fifty-thousand dollars,—an immense sum when gold was probably worth more than twenty times its present value. All antiquity was unanimous in its praise of this statue, and the exactness and finish of its details were as remarkable as the grandeur and majesty of its proportions. Another of the famous works of Phidias was the bronze statue of Minerva, which was the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... Colonel McIntyre tell Judge Hildebrand about his securities and their present value, and the next day he came to consult the judge about engaging a secretary. I fixed up credentials and went to Mr. Turnbull; he believed my story that I was the colonel's new secretary and got the ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... strikingly in the case of these great cities is true, in lesser degree, of all cities and towns and villages that have grown in population. The total increase in land values in America since the days of the pioneers equals, of course, the present value of its land, since it was acquired by our forefathers without payment, or with only a nominal fee to the Indians. Almost all of this enormous increase in wealth has gone into the pockets of the fortunate individuals who got possession; very little into the public treasury. ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... Elizabeth's reign, very unusual. Let us, however, assume the rent at only five shillings, and land at sixteen years' purchase. Upon this basis, the rent would be 14L, and the value of the fee simple 224L. Now, if it were required to equate that sum with its present value, a very operose [Endnote: 13] calculation might be requisite. But contenting ourselves with the gross method of making such equations between 1560 and the current century, that is, multiplying by five, we shall find the capital value of the estate to be eleven hundred and ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... comes Meynheer Julius Neergard—the only man who seems to have brains enough to see the present value of that parcel to the Siowitha people. Everybody else had the same chance; nobody except Neergard knew enough to take it. Why shouldn't ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... even now. It was on Dec. 10, 1656, that Lockhart received from his Highness the honour of knighthood at Whitehall; and on Feb. 3, 1656-7, it was settled by his Highness and the Council that Lockhart's allowance thenceforward in his Embassy should be L100 a week, i.e, about L18,000 a year in present value. Lockhart's real post being in Paris, his attendance in Parliament can have been but brief. His fellow-Scotsman, Swinton of Swinton, also gave but brief attendance. The Protector had taken the opportunity of Swinton's visit to London ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... and which alone is worth our hope and struggle. The basis of all good citizenship is physical and moral health. Health is really wholeness, and so we get the word holiness, for all these words are products of the same idea. What service to the race can be greater, both in its present value and its ultimate effect, than to produce men and women both physically and morally whole? It is no doubt a duty to do all we can to help the unfit, and assist the infirm; but it is better wisdom and a truer duty to produce ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson |
