A.R. Von Quotes

[Socialistic] economic planning, regulation, and intervention pave the way to totalitarianism by building a power structure that will inevitably be seized by the most power-hungry and unscrupulous.

People who love sausage and people who believe in justice should never watch either of them being made

In Europe democracy is a falsehood. I do not know where it will end, but it cannot end in a quiet old age.

Conquering the universe one has to solve two problems: gravity and red tape. We could have mastered gravity.

There's no sense in being precise when you don't even know what you're talking about.

Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.

Anyone who attempts to generate random numbers by deterministic means is, of course, living in a state of sin.

Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied.

The word 'freedom' means for me not a point of departure but a genuine point of arrival. The point of departure is defined by the word 'order.' Freedom cannot exist without the concept of order.

The events which can not be prevented, must be directed.

When Paris sneezes, Europe catches a cold.

The enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan.

War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means.

Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war.

With four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk.

The quality of the box matters little. Success depends upon the man who sits in it.

All stable processes we shall predict. All unstable processes we shall control.

No one starts a war--or rather, no one in his sense ought to do so--without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by the war and how he intends to conduct it.

Enjoy when you can, and endure when you must.

All one can really leave one's children is what's inside their heads. Education, in other words, and not earthly possessions, is the ultimate legacy, the only thing that cannot be taken away.

A war is not lost until you consider it lost.

Innovators and creative geniuses cannot be reared in schools. They are precisely the men who defy what the school has taught them.

A good engineer gets stale very fast if he doesn't keep his hands dirty.

The murder of a man is still murder, even in wartime.

There probably is a God. Many things are easier to explain if there is than if there isn't.

Die gefährlichste Weltanschauung ist die Weltanschauung derer, die die Welt nie angeschaut haben. (The most dangerous worldview is the worldview of those who have not viewed the world)

The worst evils which mankind has ever had to endure were inflicted by bad governments.

Everything is hard before it is easy.

The duty of the fighter pilot is to patrol his area of the sky, and shoot down any enemy fighters in that area. Anything else is rubbish.

To secure peace is to prepare for war.

Preventive war is like committing suicide out of fear of death.

Our friends show us what we can do; our enemies teach us what we must do.

No plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first contact with the main hostile force.

Nothing is worth more than this day. You cannot relive yesterday. Tomorrow is still beyond your reach.

He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.

When we talk mathematics, we may be discussing a secondary language built on the primary language of the nervous system.

If I speak of Vienna it must be in the past tense, as a man speaks of a woman he has loved and who is dead.

I wanted only to live in accord with the promptings which came from my true self. Why was that so very difficult?

Strength of character and inner fortitude, however, are decisive factors. The confidence of the man in the ranks rests upon a man's strength of character.

Harbour Island in the Bahamas is beautiful, with turquoise water and pink sand.

Problems are often stated in vague terms... because it is quite uncertain what the problems really are.

I am thinking about something much more important than bombs. I am thinking about computers.

[E]conomic history is a long record of government policies that failed because they were designed with a bold disregard for the laws of economics

Tactics is the art of using troops in battle; strategy is the art of using battles to win the war

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

Why look for conspiracy when stupidity can explain so much

Find the enemy and shoot him down. Anything else is nonsense.

Even if a unity of faith is not possible, a unity of love is.

Ten million ignorances do not constitute one knowledge.

In government, the scum rises to the top.