Quality, Price and Value

It is unwise to pay too much, but it is more unwise to pay too little.

When you pay too much you lose a little money, that’s all. When you pay too little you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing you bought it to do.

The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot–it can’t be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it’s well to add something for the risk you take. And if you do that, you will have enough to pay for something better.

There is hardly anything in the world that some men cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man’s lawful prey.

–John Ruskin (1819-1900)