A.R. Von Quotes

Contempt is frequently regulated by fashion.

Laugh as loud as you please at your companion's wit; do not even smile at his folly.

Books afford the surest relief in the most melancholy moments.

Many have been ruined by their fortunes, and many have escaped ruin by the want of fortune. To obtain it the great have become little, and the little great.

When we meet with better fare than was expected, the disappointment is overlooked even by the unscrupulous. When we meet with worse than was expected, philosophers alone know how to make it better.

Though fancy may be the patient's complaint, necessity is often the doctor's.

It would be a considerable consolation to the poor and discontented could they but see the means whereby the wealth they covet has been acquired, or the misery that it entails.

The purse of the patient often protracts his case.

The sluggard is a living insensible.

An everlasting tranquility is, in my imagination, the highest possible felicity, because I know of no felicity on earth higher than that which a peaceful mind and contented heart afford.

Troops of furies march in the drunkard's triumph.

When ill news comes too late to be serviceable to your neighbor, keep it to yourself.

Those beings only are fit for solitude who are like nobody, and are liked by nobody.

We're only really thinking when we can't think out fully what we are really thinking about!

With the growth of knowledge our ideas must from time to time be organized afresh. The change takes place usually in accordance with new maxims as they arise, but it always remains provisional.

The highest cannot be spoken; it can only be acted.

Animals, we have been told, are taught by their organs. Yes, I would add, and so are men, but men have this further advantage that they can also teach their organs in return.

Let's plunge ourselves into the roar of time, the whirl of accident; may pain and pleasure, success and failure, shift as they will -- it's only action that can make a man.

One cannot always be a hero, but one can always be a man.

Distrust those in whom the desire to punish is strong.

There are people who pay attention to the weaknesses of their friends; that is to no avail. I have always closely watched and profited from the strengths of my adversaries.

God made man simple, but how he changed and got complicated is hard to say.

It is equally a mistake to hold one's self too high, or to rate one's self too cheap.

One must be something to be able to do something.

The one who always strives, That one can be redeemed.

The written word has this advantage, that it lasts and can await the time when it is allowed to take effect.

The errors of the observer come from the qualities of the human mind.

Who is sure of their own motives can in confidence advance or retreat.

The little man is still a man.

Error is to truth as sleep is to waking. I have observed that one turns, as if refreshed, from error back to truth.

A man does not mind being blamed for his faults, and being punished for them, and he patiently suffers much for them; but he becomes impatient if he is required to give them up.

Hypotheses are lullabies for teachers to sing their students to sleep.

All of us have life; few of us have an idea of it.

One doesn't always lose when one has to do without.

Words are mere sound and smoke, dimming the heavenly light.

Don't give us your doubts, gives us your certainties, for we have doubts enough of our own.

Fret not over the irretrievable, but ever act as if thy life were just begun.

One should not wish anyone disagreeable conditions of life; but for him who is involved in them by chance, they are touchstones of characters and of the most decisive value to man.

The rainbow mirrors human aims and action. Think, and more clearly wilt thou grasp it, seeing Life is but light in many-hued reflection.

Any trifle is enough to entertain two lovers.

The rogue has everywhere the advantage.

Behavior is a mirror in which every one shows his image. [Ger., Das Betragen ist ein Spiegel in welchem jeder sein Bild zeigt.]

Mysterious in the light of day, nature retains her veil, despite our clamours: That which she does not willingly display cannot be wrenched from her with levers, screws and hammers.

No one knows what he is doing so long as he is acting rightly; but of what is wrong one is always conscious.

Keep not standing fixed and rooted. Briskly venture, briskly roam.

Just trust yourself and you'll learn the art of living.

Every beginning is cheerful.

Piety, like nobility, has its aristocracy.

Do not hurry; do not rest.

How circumscribed is woman's destiny!