A.R. Von Quotes

Just don't go to a place where everything is too expensive... it'll put your husband in a bad mood.

Self-knowledge comes from knowing other men.

First and last, what is demanded of genius is love of truth.

How we feel is how we want to be heard.

If it is impossible to judge merit and guilt in the field of natural science, then it is not possible in any field, and historical research becomes an idle, empty activity.

We Germans fear God, but nothing else in the world; and it is the fear of God, which lets us love and foster peace.

When translating one must proceed up to the intranslatable; only then one becomes aware of the foreign nation and the foreign tongue.

Truth is a torch, but a huge one, and so it is only with blinking eyes what we all of us try to get past it, in actual terror of being burnt.

War is the province of chance. In no sphere of human activity is such a margin to be left for this intruder. It increases the uncertainty of every circumstance, and deranges the course of events.

Recently my publicist asked me for a college photo, and I realize how chubby I looked. I know this sounds totally shallow, but my advice is don't fall prey to the freshmen fifteen!

Most brilliance arises from ordinary people working together in extraordinary ways.

Whatever liberates our spirit, without also giving us mastery over ourselves, is destructive.

The beautiful is a phenomenon which is never apparent of itself, but is reflected in a thousand different works of the creator.

Each individual fact, taken by itself, can indeed arouse our curiosity or our astonishment, or be useful to us in its practical applications.

Whenever two good people argue over principles, they are both right.

Since that first showing of Foolish Wives I have seemed to walk through vast crowds of people, their white American faces turned towards me in stern reproof.

The continued existence of society depends upon private property.

Art is based on a strong sentiment of religion,--on a profound and mighty earnestness; hence it is so prone to co-operate with religion.

Democracy is not a good that people can enjoy without trouble. It is, on the contrary, a treasure that must be daily defended and conquered anew by strenuous effort.

After fifteen minutes nobody looks at a rainbow.

A fact acquires its true and full value only through the idea which is developed from it.

Passions are vices or virtues to their highest powers.

The believer who has never doubted will hardly convert a doubter.

...as man under pressure tends to give in to physical and intellectual weakness, only great strength of will can lead to the objective.

Justice, like liberty and coercion, is a concept which, for the sake of clarity, ought to be confined to the deliberate treatment of men by other men.

Destiny is for losers. It's just a lame excuse for letting things happen to you instead of making them happen.

I hate everything that merely instructs me without augmenting or directly invigorating my activity.

Rulers do not like to admit that their power is restricted by any laws other than those of physics and biology. They never ascribe their failures and frustrations to the violation of economic law.

[...] to introduce into the philosophy of war itself a principle of moderation would be an absurdity

What do people mean when they talk about unhappiness? It is not so much unhappiness as impatience that from time to time possesses men, and then they choose to call themselves miserable.

If there are some people that like the film and some people that do not, that's fine for me, because I do not intend to make very broad films.

I read world literature and I read French romances in the originals. I had quite a profound knowledge - no, that sounds conceited, but I did have a profound interest in everything spiritual.

Begin by instructing yourself, then you will receive instruction from others.

Religion is not in want of art; it rests on its own majesty.

We must shed the illusion that we can deliberately 'create the future of mankind'

It would be a lowly art that allowed itself to be understood all at once.

If you make an error, use it as a stepping stone to a new idea you might not have otherwise discovered.

We are not always even what we are most.

I believed that our own public would keep this in mind even in this serious crisis, and stand firm if only we at the front continued to stand firm too.

The more you speak of yourself, the more you are likely to lie.

If in the infinite you want to stride, Just walk in the finite to every side.

Ambition and love are the wings of great actions.

Whoever does great things with small means has successfully reached the goal.

Not reading a beautiful book again because you've already read it, that is, as if you were not visiting a dear friend again because you know him already.

Singing is near miraculous because it is the mastering of what is otherwise a pure instrument of egotism: the human voice.

The Army is the most outstanding institution in every country, for it alone makes possible the existence of all civic institutions.

Men are much more apt to agree in what they do than in what they think.

Some of our weaknesses are born in us, others are the result of education; it is a question which of the two gives us most trouble.

The masses do not like those who surpass them in any regard. The average man envies and hates those who are different.

There are two things you don't want to see being made - sausage and legislation.