A.R. Von Quotes

There is nothing worth thinking but it has been thought before; we must only try to think it again.

The most foolish of all errors is for clever young men to believe that they forfeit their originality in recognizing a truth which has already been recognized by others.

I come more and more to the conclusion that one must take the side of the minority which is always the more intelligent one.

He who is wise puts aside all claims which may dissipate his attention, and confining himself to one branch excels in that.

A man avails himself of the truth so long as it is serviceable; but he seizes on what is false with a passionate eloquence as soon as he can make a momentary use of it.

I am very anxious to please the public, particularly as it lives and lets live.

I can promise to be upright, but not to be without bias. [Ger., Aufrichtig zu sein kann ich versprechen; unparteiisch zu sein aber nicht.]

What a mighty spirit in a narrow bosom. [Ger., Welch' hoher Geist in einer engen Brust.]

He who would reproach an author for obscurity should look into his own mind to see whether it is quite clear there. In the dusk the plainest writing is illegible.

Lay hold of life with both hands, whenever thou mayest seize it, it is interesting.

A mathematician is only perfect insofar as he is a perfect man, sensitive to the beauty of truth.

The desire to explain what is simple by what is complex, what is easy by what is difficult, is a calamity.

A world without love would be no world.

The useful may be trusted to further itself, for many produce it and no one can do without it; but the beautiful must be specially encouraged, for few can present it, while yet all have need of it.

What is the true test of character unless it be its progressive development in the bustle and turmoil, in the action and reaction of daily life.

No one feels himself easy in a garden which does not look like the open country.

Wind is the loving Wooer of waters; Wind blends together Billows all-foaming. Spirit of man, Thou art like unto water! Fortune of man, Thou art like unto wind!

Properly speaking, we learn from those books only that we cannot judge. The author of a book that I am competent to criticise would have to learn from me.

Had you restrained your love, you would be free of sorrow. The greater the love, while one possesses it, the greater the sorrow when one is deprived of it.

In this apparatus is nothing new but its simplicity and thorough trustworthiness. On his revolutionary method of organic analysis.

Receiving a new truth is like adding a new sense.

The loveliest theories are being overthrown by these damned experiments; it's no fun being a chemist anymore.

We may fairly judge of the commercial prosperity of a country from the amount of sulphuric acid it consumes.

By the deficiency or absence of one necessary constituent, all the others being present, the soil is rendered barren for all those crops to the life of which that one constituent is indispensable.

From one sublime genius-NEWTON-more light has proceeded than the labour of a thousand years preceding had been able to produce.

I have been a Professor Emeritus since 1958, and have continued my scientific studies.

Personally, I like to start my day off as a Saint and graduate to my Sinner self!

I love being completely immersed in everything I do.

Truthfully, I love all animals.

I don't feel I'm a diva in any way, but, like, I just can't bring myself to reuse eyelashes. I think it's gross. And so I only use them one time. Is that bad? I feel like it's bad!

I got to actually tattoo one of the members of The Misfits. The very first tattoo I ever did was this Misfits skull.

I encouraged the cast to make up their own lines.

When I show a film at a festival, I am showing myself. Everything is at stake for me.

When I was in film school, it was said that all good films were characterised by some form of humour.

If people do not laugh it's not comedy.

We start with a rehearsal where the actors kind of bring what they think should be in the scene. But we film everything, and we use cuts of this first take, also.

Even if you feel all right, tell the actors you don't have full power, and they will help you.

Just the fact that you're working is good for you.

I had an almost fetishistic attraction to film technology.

The struggle of the spirit against the senses is the gospel of modern man. I do not wish to have any part in it.

Despite all the progress of civilization, women have remained exactly as they emerged from the hand of Nature.

In talking about equality and asking vehemently for its realization, nobody advocates a curtailment of his own present income.

Nobody is in a position to decree what should make a fellow man happier.

The essence of Keynesianism is its complete failure to conceive the role that saving and capital accumulation play in the improvement of economic conditions.

The policies advocated by the welfare school remove the incentive to saving on the part of private citizens.

The average American worker enjoys amenities for which Croesus, Crassus, the Medici, and Louis XIV would have envied him.

As the science of economics...exploded the fallacies of every brand of utopianism, it was outlawed and stigmatized as unscientific.

Reason is the main resource of man in his struggle for survival.

He who only wishes and hopes does not interfere actively with the course of events and with the shaping of his own destiny.

The essential characteristic of Western civilization that distinguishes it from the arrested and petrified civilizations of the East was and is its concern for freedom from the state.