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Quotes by Austrian Authors

"Progress would be wonderful - if only it would stop."
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Robert Musil
"Progress would be wonderful - if only it would stop."
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"I was put in the Air Corps. I was never educated to serve in the military, but soon my activities in the American Air Corps became very interesting to me."
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Leon Askin
"I was put in the Air Corps. I was never educated to serve in the military, but soon my activities in the American Air Corps became very interesting to me."
"It is not in the power of governments to increase the supply of one commodity without a corresponding restriction in the supply of other commodities more urgently demanded by consumers. The authority may reduce the price of one commodity only by raising the prices of others."
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Ludwig von Mises
"It is not in the power of governments to increase the supply of one commodity without a corresponding restriction in the supply of other commodities more urgently demanded by consumers. The authority may reduce the price of one commodity only by raising the prices of others."
"Sensual love deceives one as to the nature of heavenly love; it could not do so alone, but since it unconsciously has the element of heavenly love within it, it can do so."
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Franz Kafka
"Sensual love deceives one as to the nature of heavenly love; it could not do so alone, but since it unconsciously has the element of heavenly love within it, it can do so."
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29
"You get tragedy where the tree, instead of bending, breaks."
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Ludwig Wittgenstein
"You get tragedy where the tree, instead of bending, breaks."
"Believing in progress does not mean believing that any progress has yet been made."
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Franz Kafka
"Believing in progress does not mean believing that any progress has yet been made."
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29
"The mission of the press is to spread culture while destroying the attention span."
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Karl Kraus
"The mission of the press is to spread culture while destroying the attention span."
"That the social life of human beings is subject to definite limitations; that it is governed by a set of laws that are comparable with those of Nature; these are notions that are unknown to the etatist. For the etatist, everything is a question of Macht - power, force, might. And his conception of Macht is crudely materialistic."
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Ludwig von Mises
"That the social life of human beings is subject to definite limitations; that it is governed by a set of laws that are comparable with those of Nature; these are notions that are unknown to the etatist. For the etatist, everything is a question of Macht - power, force, might. And his conception of Macht is crudely materialistic."
"A self-fulfilling prophecy is an assumption or prediction that, purely as a result of having been made, cause the expected or predicted event to occur and thus confirms its own 'accuracy.'"
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Paul Watzlawick
"A self-fulfilling prophecy is an assumption or prediction that, purely as a result of having been made, cause the expected or predicted event to occur and thus confirms its own 'accuracy.'"
"Opposition is not necessarily enmity; it is merely misused and made an occasion for enmity."
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Sigmund Freud
"Opposition is not necessarily enmity; it is merely misused and made an occasion for enmity."
"Analogies it is true decide nothing but they can make one feel more at home."
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Sigmund Freud
"Analogies it is true decide nothing but they can make one feel more at home."
"It is not the fault of the entrepreneurs that the consumers,the people, the common man,prefer liquor to Bibles and detective stories to serious books, and that governments prefer guns to butter. The entrepreneur does not make greater profits in selling bad things than in selling good things. His profits are the greater the better he succeeds in providing the consumers with those things they ask for most intensely."
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Ludwig von Mises
"It is not the fault of the entrepreneurs that the consumers,the people, the common man,prefer liquor to Bibles and detective stories to serious books, and that governments prefer guns to butter. The entrepreneur does not make greater profits in selling bad things than in selling good things. His profits are the greater the better he succeeds in providing the consumers with those things they ask for most intensely."
"A stair not worn hollow by footsteps is, regarded from its own point of view, only a boring something made of wood."
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Franz Kafka
"A stair not worn hollow by footsteps is, regarded from its own point of view, only a boring something made of wood."
"The play is always fresh to me. It's not the audience's fault that I've said the words before."
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Theodore Bikel
"The play is always fresh to me. It's not the audience's fault that I've said the words before."
"I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves."
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Ludwig Wittgenstein
"I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves."
"The world is independent of my will."
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Ludwig Wittgenstein
"The world is independent of my will."
"Neurotics complain of their illness, but they make the most of it, and when it comes to talking it away from them they will defend it like a lioness her young."
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Sigmund Freud
"Neurotics complain of their illness, but they make the most of it, and when it comes to talking it away from them they will defend it like a lioness her young."
"The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions."
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Alfred Adler
"The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions."
"Freedom granted only when it is known beforehand that its effects will be beneficial is not freedom."
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Friedrich August von Hayek
"Freedom granted only when it is known beforehand that its effects will be beneficial is not freedom."
"So soon as a fashion is universal, it is out of date."
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Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
"So soon as a fashion is universal, it is out of date."
"There are two sighs of relief every night in the life of an opera manager. The first comes when the curtain goes up The second sigh of relief comes when the final curtain goes down without any disaster, and one realizes, gratefully, that the miracle has happened again."
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Rudolf Bing
"There are two sighs of relief every night in the life of an opera manager. The first comes when the curtain goes up The second sigh of relief comes when the final curtain goes down without any disaster, and one realizes, gratefully, that the miracle has happened again."
"No doubt unity is something to be desired, to be striven for, but it cannot be willed into being by mere declarations."
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Theodore Bikel
"No doubt unity is something to be desired, to be striven for, but it cannot be willed into being by mere declarations."
"Approval or blame will follow in the world to come."
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Franz Schubert
"Approval or blame will follow in the world to come."
"Lawyers know how to take isolated complaints in a divorce case and build them into one big one."
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Hedy Lamarr
"Lawyers know how to take isolated complaints in a divorce case and build them into one big one."
"So I think one can say on empirical grounds - not because of some philosophical principle - that you can't have democracy unless you have a market economy."
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Peter L. Berger
"So I think one can say on empirical grounds - not because of some philosophical principle - that you can't have democracy unless you have a market economy."
"Like everything metaphysical the harmony between thought and reality is to be found in the grammar of the language."
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Ludwig Wittgenstein
"Like everything metaphysical the harmony between thought and reality is to be found in the grammar of the language."
"My body is like breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I don't think about it, I just have it."
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Arnold Schwarzenegger
"My body is like breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I don't think about it, I just have it."
"Science may be described as the art of systematic over-simplification."
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Karl Popper
"Science may be described as the art of systematic over-simplification."
"My table is now brightly, now dimly lighted. Its temperature varies. It may receive an ink stain. One of its legs may be broken. It may be repaired, polished, and replaced part by part. But, for me, it remains the table at which I daily write."
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Ernst Mach
"My table is now brightly, now dimly lighted. Its temperature varies. It may receive an ink stain. One of its legs may be broken. It may be repaired, polished, and replaced part by part. But, for me, it remains the table at which I daily write."
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28
"I make no claim that Jewish culture is superior to other cultures or that the Jewish song is better than the song of my neighbor."
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Theodore Bikel
"I make no claim that Jewish culture is superior to other cultures or that the Jewish song is better than the song of my neighbor."
"I would like to have you quote me, Erich von Stroheim, as having said on this day of this month of this year this one thing: you Americans are living on baby food."
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Erich von Stroheim
"I would like to have you quote me, Erich von Stroheim, as having said on this day of this month of this year this one thing: you Americans are living on baby food."
"Do not learn more than you absolutely need to get through life."
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Karl Kraus
"Do not learn more than you absolutely need to get through life."
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"To measure is to determine the ratio of one quantity to another which is invariable or assumed to be invariable. Invariability in respect of the property to be measured, or at least the legitimacy of assuming such invariability, is a sine qua non of all measurement. Only when this assumption is admissible is it possible to determine the variations that are to be measured."
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Ludwig von Mises
"To measure is to determine the ratio of one quantity to another which is invariable or assumed to be invariable. Invariability in respect of the property to be measured, or at least the legitimacy of assuming such invariability, is a sine qua non of all measurement. Only when this assumption is admissible is it possible to determine the variations that are to be measured."
"I don't want life to imitate art. I want life to be art."
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Ernst Fischer
"I don't want life to imitate art. I want life to be art."
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"Our moral traditions developed concurrently with our reason, not as its product."
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Friedrich August von Hayek
"Our moral traditions developed concurrently with our reason, not as its product."
"Journalism can never be silent: that is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault. It must speak, and speak immediately, while the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph and the signs of horror are still in the air."
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Henry Anatole Grunwald
"Journalism can never be silent: that is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault. It must speak, and speak immediately, while the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph and the signs of horror are still in the air."
"My project was radiation damage of Si and Ge by energetic electrons, critical for the use of the recently developed semiconductor devices for applications in outer space."
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Walter Kohn
"My project was radiation damage of Si and Ge by energetic electrons, critical for the use of the recently developed semiconductor devices for applications in outer space."
"The biological equipment of a man rigidly restricts the field in which he can serve."
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Ludwig von Mises
"The biological equipment of a man rigidly restricts the field in which he can serve."
"From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back."
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Franz Kafka
"From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back."
"Every man gets a narrower and narrower field of knowledge in which he must be an expert in order to compete with other people. The specialist knows more and more about less and less and finally knows everything about nothing."
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Konrad Lorenz
"Every man gets a narrower and narrower field of knowledge in which he must be an expert in order to compete with other people. The specialist knows more and more about less and less and finally knows everything about nothing."
"Naive inflationism demands an increase in the quantity of money without suspecting that this will diminish the purchasing power of the money."
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Ludwig von Mises
"Naive inflationism demands an increase in the quantity of money without suspecting that this will diminish the purchasing power of the money."
"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."
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Erich von Stroheim
"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."
"What I write is different from what I say, what I say is different from what I think, what I think is different from what I ought to think and so it goes further into the deepest darkness."
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Franz Kafka
"What I write is different from what I say, what I say is different from what I think, what I think is different from what I ought to think and so it goes further into the deepest darkness."
"The Southern Baptist Church is a specific culture in itself. So, I had to study, talk to people, watch tape and go to performances to see how Gospel artists move compared to secular artists."
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Boris Kodjoe
"The Southern Baptist Church is a specific culture in itself. So, I had to study, talk to people, watch tape and go to performances to see how Gospel artists move compared to secular artists."
"The ladder of success in Hollywood is usually a press agent, actor, director, producer, leading man; and you are a star if you sleep with each of them in that order. Crude, but true."
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Hedy Lamarr
"The ladder of success in Hollywood is usually a press agent, actor, director, producer, leading man; and you are a star if you sleep with each of them in that order. Crude, but true."
"I have hardly anything in common with myself and should stand very quietly in a corner, content that I can breathe."
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Franz Kafka
"I have hardly anything in common with myself and should stand very quietly in a corner, content that I can breathe."
"One must not cheat anyone, not even the world of its victory."
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Franz Kafka
"One must not cheat anyone, not even the world of its victory."
"And thus it happens that the reader, the closer he comes to the novel's end, the more he wishes he were back in the summer with which it begins, and finally, instead of following the hero onto the cliffs of suicide, joyfully turns back to that summer, content to stay there forever."
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Franz Kafka
"And thus it happens that the reader, the closer he comes to the novel's end, the more he wishes he were back in the summer with which it begins, and finally, instead of following the hero onto the cliffs of suicide, joyfully turns back to that summer, content to stay there forever."
"It is not because I do not love my adopted land - it is the natural feeling of one far from home, who remembers those happy, carefree days when life flowed at full tide, without responsibility, flashing past one like the drama in a fascinating story of adventure and romance."
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Erich von Stroheim
"It is not because I do not love my adopted land - it is the natural feeling of one far from home, who remembers those happy, carefree days when life flowed at full tide, without responsibility, flashing past one like the drama in a fascinating story of adventure and romance."
"Melodic invention is one of the surest signs of a divine gift."
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Gustav Mahler
"Melodic invention is one of the surest signs of a divine gift."
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