A.R. Von Quotes

Fifty-one percent of a nation can establish a totalitarian regime, suppress minorities and still remain democratic.

It seems to never occur to fools that merit and good fortune are closely united.

Some think that they will exercise power for the general good, but that is what all those with power have believed. Power is evil in itself, regardless of who exercises it.

Not the maker of plans and promises, but rather the one who offers faithful service in small matters. This is the person who is most likely to achieve what is good and lasting.

The statesman's task is to hear God's footsteps marching through history, and to try and catch on to His coattails as He marches past.

Only law can give us freedom.

Unemployment doles can have no other effect than the perpetuation of unemployment.

Whoever prefers life to death, happiness to suffering, well-being to misery must defend without compromise private ownership in the means of production.

In schoolbooks and in literature we can separate ecclesiastical and political history; in the life of mankind they are intertwined.

The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive.

The older we grow, the greater become the ordeals.

Every spoken word arouses our self-will.

Every experience of beauty points to [eternity].

Better to be a beggar in freedom than to be forced into compromises against my conscience.

A moving body whose motion was not retarded by any resisting force would continue to move to all eternity.

Language makes infinite use of finite media.

We are our own devils; we drive ourselves out of our Edens.

Take care of your body with steadfast fidelity. The soul must see through these eyes alone, and if they are dim, the whole world is clouded.

To inquire and to create; these are the grand centres around which all human pursuits revolve, or at least to these objects do they all more or less directly refer.

No prudent antagonist thinks light of his adversaries.

If I tell the Berliners to step forward, they do it. If I tell the Viennese to step forward, they do it, but then they ask why.

The more a man acts on his own, the more he develops himself. In large associations he is too prone to become merely an instrument.

In every artist there is a touch of audacity without which no talent is conceivable.

If the mind loves solitude, it has thereby acquired a loftier character, and it becomes still more noble when the taste is indulged in.

To be controlled in our economic pursuits means to be controlled in everything.

The backbone of surprise is fusing speed with secrecy.

What you can do, or think you can, begin it.

The quantity of force which can be brought into action in the whole of Nature is unchangeable, and can neither be increased nor diminished.

There are very few honest friends--the demand is not particularly great.

The emphasis on mathematical methods seems to be shifted more towards combinatorics and set theory - and away from the algorithm of differential equations which dominates mathematical physics.

Profits are the driving force of the market economy. The greater the profits, the better the needs of the consumers are supplied... He who serves the public best, makes the highest profits.

Never forget that no military leader has ever become great without audacity.

I do not think it is an exaggeration to say history is largely a history of inflation, usually inflations engineered by governments for the gain of governments.

I do not wish to be a coward like the father of mankind and throw the blame upon a woman.

What a blessing it is to love books. Everybody must love something, and I know of no objects of love that give such substantial and unfailing returns as books and a garden.

It seems to me that socialists today can preserve their position in academic economics merely by the pretense that the differences are entirely moral questions about which science cannot decide.

The struggle for freedom is ultimately not resistance to autocrats or oligarchs but resistance to the despotism of public opinion.

To retain respect for sausages and laws, one must not watch them in the making.

Many who are self-taught far excel the doctors, masters, and bachelors of the most renowned universities.

Years of cultural programming have taught us to love some animals while eating others, when in all reality, all animals are sentient beings with the capacity to feel, both physically and emotionally.

With uncertainty in one scale, courage and self-confidence should be thrown into the other to correct the balance. The greater they are, the greater the margin that can be left for accidents.

He who believes in freedom of the will has never loved and never hated.

Pain is the great teacher of mankind. Beneath its breath souls develop.

I rather liked Stalin and Molotov, got along fine with them.

To a valet no man is a hero.

Calvin was virtually the founder of America.

If you increase the quantity of money, you bring about the lowering of the purchasing power of the monetary unit.

One can become enthusiastic over anything. For a time I was delighted with bomb throwing. It gave me a tremendous pleasure to bomb those fellows from above.

There are very few men-and they are the exceptions-who are able to think and feel beyond the present moment

All this talk: the state should do this or that, ultimately means: the police should force consumers to behave otherwise than they would behave spontaneously.