top of page
Quotes by Austrian Authors

"Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy."


"The first requisite of civilization is that of justice."

"I have the true feeling of myself only when I am unbearably unhappy."

"Someone who can write aphorisms should not fritter away his time in essays."


"In particular, I established a reasonably accurate energy threshold for permanent displacement of a nucleus from its regular lattice position, substantially smaller than had been previously presumed."

"I had a terrible vision: I saw an encyclopedia walk up to a polymath and open him up."


"I was now successful in proving that a direction of movement is localized in the cerebellum."

"Science always has its origin in the adaptation of thought to some definite field of experience."


"For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment."


"Since, however, the reduced surplus value is to be distributed among them in like manner, the modification of their respective parts in the production of surplus value must find expression in a modification of the prices."

"I don't have any gnawing guilt over contributing to any unhappiness suffered by my husbands. They were as much to blame as I was."


"What we call happiness in the strictest sense comes from the (preferably sudden) satisfaction of needs which have been dammed up to a high degree."

"A lasting order cannot be established by bayonets."


"The investigations also proved that there were many cases of spontaneous deviation, i.e. cases where there had been no stimulation of the semi-circular canal apparatus."


"Analysis does not set out to make pathological reactions impossible, but to give the patient's ego freedom to decide one way or another."

"If you can't pay for a thing, don't buy it. If you can't get paid for it, don't sell it. Do this, and you will have calm and drowsy nights, with all of the good business you have now and none of the bad. If you have time, don't wait for time."


"It is reality that awakens possibilities, and nothing would be more perverse than to deny it."


"He does not believe that does not live according to his belief ."

"A child learns to discard his ideals, whereas a grown-up never wears out his short pants."


"Even such an obvious idea as to observe an animal with vertigo or to rotate an animal did not occur to him, in spite of the fact that he conducted numerous vertigo experiments with human subjects and made frequent use of animal experiments."

"Home is one's birthplace, ratified by memory."

"If I shall exist eternally, how shall I exist tomorrow?"


"The fact that political ideologies are tangible realities is not a proof of their vitally necessary character. The bubonic plague was an extraordinarily powerful social reality, but no one would have regarded it as vitally necessary."

"Owing to the difficulty of dealing with substances of high molecular weight we are still a long way from having determined the chemical characteristics and the constitution of proteins, which are regarded as the principal con-stituents of living organisms."

"One can't understand the Christian Right and similar movements unless one sees them as reactive - they're reacting to what they call secular humanism."


"When we are no longer able to change a situation - we are challenged to change ourselves."


"The interpretation of facts in a certain way stimulates other scientists' thoughts."

"If my accent betrayed my foreign birth, it also stamped me as an enemy, in the imagination of the producers."


"The mind is like an iceberg, it floats with one-seventh of its bulk above water."


"The voice of the intellect is a soft one, but it does not rest until it has gained a hearing."

"You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet."

"The scientist only imposes two things, namely truth and sincerity, imposes them upon himself and upon other scientists."

"He who seeks does not find, but he who does not seek will be found."


"The psychical, whatever its nature may be, is itself unconscious."


"Love, work, and knowledge are the wellsprings of our lives, they should also govern it."


"It is impossible to overlook the extent to which civilization is built upon a renunciation of instinct."
bottom of page