An ounce of gold, mister, is worth what it is because of the human labor that went into the finding and the getting of it.

— Howard (Walter Huston)

economicsfindinggoldhard worklaborwalter huston

4 seconds sound clip from the The Treasure of the Sierra Madre movie soundboard.

You can hear this line at 00:11:50.861 in the Blu-ray version of the movie.

Quote context

[...]

- Gold in Mexico? Why, sure there is. Not 10 days from here by rail or pack train, there's a mountain waiting for the right guy to come along, discover a treasure, and then tickle it till it lets him have it. The question is, are you the right guy?

- 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.

- 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.

- That's 6000 months, or 500 years, scrabbling over mountains, going hungry and thirsty.

- An ounce of gold, mister, is worth what it is because of the human labor that went into the finding and the getting of it.

- 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.

- Gold's a devilish sort of a thing, anyway. You start out, you tell yourself you'll be satisfied with 25000 handsome smackers worth of it. So help my lord and cross my heart.

- Fine resolution.

[...]

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