Worth

Empty love of pageantry, stage-plays, flocks and herds, jousting, a bone cast to lapdogs, crumbs thrown into a fishpond, the toil of ants carrying their burdens, skurryings of scared little mice, puppets moved by strings: amid such environment therefore you must take your place graciously and not “snorting defiance,” no you must recognize the fact that everyone is worth just so much as those things in which they are interested.

M. Aurelius, Meditations, VII.3 (adapted from the Loeb edition)