Quotes & Sayings About Diminishing Returns

You get diminishing returns when you are restricted to your comfort zone — Sunday Adelaja

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

At first, I thought it was because I was raised with all this Chinese humility ... Or maybe it was because when you're Chinese you're supposed to accept everything, flow with the Tao and not make waves. But my therapist said, Why do you blamd your culture, your ethnicity? And I remembered reading an article about baby boomers, how we expect the best and when we get it we worry that maybe we shoudl have expected more, because it's all diminishing returns after a certain age. — Amy Tan

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

Unbounded morality ultimately becomes counterproductive even in terms of the same moral principles being sought. The law of diminishing returns applies to morality. — Thomas Sowell

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

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

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

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

Diminishing returns is the outcome of restriction — Sunday Adelaja

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 law of diminishing returns means that even the most beneficial prinicple will become harmful if carried far enough. — Thomas Sowell

sexuality is sacred, and using it for amusement brings diminishing returns. — Ravi Zacharias

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

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

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

While, in general, life satisfaction goes up with wealth, beyond the safety net more and more wealth brings very radically diminishing returns on life satisfaction. — Steve Jurvetson

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

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

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

Knowledge is the only instrument of production that is not subject to diminishing returns. — John Maurice Clark

The scholars who research happiness suggest that more money stops making people happier at a family income of around seventy-five thousand dollars a year. After that, what economists call "diminishing marginal returns" sets in. If your family makes seventy-five thousand and your neighbor makes a hundred thousand, that extra twenty-five thousand a year means that your neighbor can drive a nicer car and go out to eat slightly more often. But it doesn't make your neighbor happier than you, or better equipped to do the thousands of small and large things that make for being a good parent. — Malcolm Gladwell

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

I've heard, "We live in a world of diminishing returns, when what we give we'll never get back." I say, "What we give returns to us in like-kind 400 times. — Kat Kaelin

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

It really doesn't take brains to be a politician as much as it takes stomach. Both would be nice, but in America we have accepted diminishing returns in this arena. — Rita Mae Brown

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

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

Ironically, the law of diminishing returns suggests that, if you feel a strong emotional reaction to a story and want to help, you should probably resist this inclination because there are probably many others like you who are also donating. By all means, you should harness the emotion you feel when a natural disaster strikes, but remind yourself that a similar disaster is happening all the time - and then consider donating to wherever your money will help the most rather than what is getting the most attention. — William MacAskill

Love is the exception to the law of diminishing returns. — Tommy Wallach

It turns out that what money buys has rapidly diminishing emotional returns ... As long as we're not destitute, happiness depends less on getting what we want than appreciating what we already have. — Robert B. Reich

Investments in greater email marketing sophistication often lead to even higher returns, not diminishing returns. — Chad White

"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

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

Modern medicine has presented us with a Faustian bargain: Our aging bodies can bankrupt our children and grandchildren. We have run into the 'law of diminishing returns' in health care, where we are often doing more and more, with higher and higher technology, at more and more cost, for less and less benefit. — Richard Lamm

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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