1000 men, say, go searching for gold. After 6 months, one of them's lucky... One out of the 1000. His find represents not only his own labor, but that of 999 others to boot.
9 seconds sound clip from the The Treasure of the Sierra Madre movie soundboard.
You can hear this line at 00:11:35.579 in the Blu-ray version of the movie.
Quote context
[...]
- A dime a dozen if they can be had at all. Streets are full of guys pushing each other.
- Ah, real bonanzas are few and far between. They take a lot of finding.
- Say, answer me this one, will you? Why is gold worth some 20 bucks an ounce?
- I don't know. Because it's scarce.
- That's 6000 months, or 500 years, scrabbling over mountains, going hungry and thirsty.
- Never thought of it just like that.
- There's no other explanation, mister.
- Gold itself ain't good for nothing except for making jewelry with, gold teeth.
[...]