“If gold has been prized because it is the most inert element, changeless and incorruptible, water is prized for the opposite reason -- its fluidity, mobility, changeability that make it a necessity and a metaphor for life itself. To value gold over water is to value economy over ecology, that which can be locked up over that which connects all things.”

“they wonder much to hear that gold, which in itself is so useless a thing, should be everywhere so much esteemed, that even men for whom it was made, and by whom it has its value, should yet be thought of less value than it is." - utopia”

“Marriage is the gold standard of all relationships. It's the currency by which everything is valued.”

“He leaned over her, the sun behind his head making a halo of gold, his face lit by the reflections off the water.”

“Nor can they understand why a totally useless substance like gold should now, all over the world, be considered far more important than human beings, who gave it such value as it has, purely for their own convenience.”

“A culture that values production over life values the wrong things, because it will produce things at the expense of living beings, human or otherwise.”