Somewhat related: Henry David Thoreau wrote in Walden, "The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, im

Somewhat related: Henry David Thoreau wrote in Walden, "The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run." And also: "I too had woven a kind of basket of a delicate texture, but I had not made it worth any one's while to buy them. Yet not the less, in my case, did I think it worth my while to weave them, and instead of studying how to make it worth men's while to buy my baskets, I studied rather how to avoid the necessity of selling them."