over-valuation

Updated: June 17, 2025

I am inclined to trace our present social unrest to this over-valuation of the intellect. It hardens the heart and blights all generous impulses. What is going to replace the home, Mr. Keith? And there is another point which has often forced itself upon me. A certain proportion of wealthy children tend to fall back into lower grades of life manual labour, and so forth.

Norman Douglas - South Wind

But even in the case of the commendations of good men, he suffers not himself to be beguiled into an over-valuation of them, lest he should be led to substitute them in the place of conscience.

William Wilberforce - A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity.

Nay, the yet later results of this imitation was that another reaction set in, and even Jefferies' own work was once more pooh-poohed. The neglect, the over-valuation, and the shift back to injustice, were all examples of the evils which beset literature at the present time, and which the much-blamed critic is almost powerless to cause or cure.

George Saintsbury - A History of Nineteenth Century Literature (1780-1895)

The chief causes of enmity among men are, pride and self-importance, the high opinion which men entertain of themselves, and the consequent deference which they exact from others: the over-valuation of worldly possessions and of worldly honours, and in consequence, a too eager competition for them.

William Wilberforce - A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity.