non-fiction-authors-from-austria

"We stand in the midst of a massive reorganization of our intellectual and spiritual life, which has seized all areas of this life—not least in medicine. The central idea of the new Reich—that the whole is more than its parts, and that the Volk is more important than the individual—had to bring about fundamental changes in our whole attitude, since this regards the nation’s most precious asset, its health."

"If anarchists want to be revolutionaries, they need to present models of revolution that differ from the Leninist one but are more substantial than the hope for some kind of historical magic."

"The political strength of a term comes from its application. No appliers, no strength."

"Anarchists will in all likelihood not lead a revolution in the near future – or ever, considering the paradox implicit in the idea itself."

"Anarchists like to blame the ruthlessness of capitalists and their cronies for their failures – or the backstabbing of Marxists."

"Both the peacock and the chicken passed through [Mesopotamia] on their way westward[;] the Sumerians called the chicken ‘ the bird from Meluhha’ and the Syrians called it the ‘Akkadian bird’."

"I well remember the time, after the First World War, when one needed a tillion-mark note to buy a dozen eggs. Since paper, however, was still valuable, the bank notes were stored in gigantic silos which stood in the yards of our factories. In these we children made tunnels and played among the billions and trillions — a strange introduction to money, but perhaps it helped me to realize how worthless it can become when man-made values change."

"Only one thing is certain. People get out of life exactly what they put into it."

"Millions of people had been uprooted by the war and could not adapt themselves to a new way of life. On the other hand, certain people had grown rich and powerful."

"It was adorned with many fine temples and monuments; among others, with a pillar cut out of one stone, twenty four yards high, at the top of which stood the image of Garuda, half-man and half-eagle."

"The Surij Bagh is probably on the site of the once famous city of Parihasapur, of the marvels of which the native legends speak so highly. This city was built by the great conqueror Lalitaditya, who reigned from A.D. 714 to 750, and was adorned with many fine temples and monuments; among others, with a pillar cut out of one stone, twenty-four yards high, at the top of which stood the image of Garuda, half-man, half-eagle. Sikandar Budh Shikan probably destroyed it, but several fragments were seen in 1727 by Mohammed Azim. Immense images of gold, silver, and other metals, also adorned the interior, but all traces of this splendour have disappeared."

"I have no doubt that one of the most important motives for joining an egalitarian political movement is this anxious sense of guilt: ‘Let us set up a society in which no one is envious.’"

"Overwhelming and astounding inequality, especially when it has an element of the unattainable, arouses far less envy than minimal inequality, which inevitably causes the envious to think: I might have been in his place."

"The best means of protection against the envy of a neighbor is to drive a Rolls-Royce instead of a car only slightly better than his...overwhelming and astounding inequality arouses far less envy than minimal inequality."

"Many well-meant proposals for the ‘good society’ or the completely ‘just society’ are doomed because they are based on the false premise that this must be a society in which there is nothing left for anyone to envy. This situation can never occur because, as is demonstrable, man inevitably discover something new to envy. In the utopian society in which we all would have not only the same clothes but the same facial expressions, one person would still envy the other for those imagined, innermost feelings which would enable him, beneath the egalitarian mask, to harbor his own private thoughts and emotions."

"Perhaps the utopia of equality, of a society redeemed from envy, exerts so strong an attraction upon intellectuals, generation after generation, because it promises always to remain a utopia, and perpetually to legitimize new demands. Nothing could be worse for the utopian intellectual than a society where there was nothing left to criticize."

"From this the merciful effect of private property is evident, though it is seldom recognized. It is not the cause of destructive envy, as the apostles of equality are always seeking to persuade us, but a necessary protective screen between people. Wherever there have ceased to be any enviable material goods or where these have for some reason been withdrawn from envy’s field of vision, we get the evil eye and envious, destructive hatred directed against the physical person. It might almost be said that private property first arose as a protective measure against other people’s envy of our physical qualities."

"Jealousy differs from envy in being infinitely more spiteful, as well as more impassioned and less restrained. Jealousy arises out of an opinion as to what is one’s due; it is not purely a sense of inferiority, as is envy."

"Proverbs in many languages agree that the greatest damage done by the envious man is to himself. Envy is described as an utterly destructive, uncreative and even diseased state of mind for which there is no remedy."

"To many, the desire to overcome their envy may have been a genuine incentive for positive achievements, and hence have led to satisfaction in a sense of achievement."

"It is not true, as many social critics would have us believe, that only the more fortunate people in this world, those with inherited possessions or chance wealth, have a vested interest in an ideology that inhibits envy. Such an ideology is in fact much more important to the envy-prone person, who can begin to make something of his life only when he has hammered out some sort of personal theory which diverts his attention from the enviable good fortune of others, and guides his energies towards realistic objectives within his scope."

"The manner in which he [Tipu] behaved to the inhabitants of Calicut was horrid. A great part of them, both male and female, were hung. He first tied up the mothers, and then suspended the children from their necks. The cruel tyrant caused several Christians and Heathens [Hindus] to be brought out naked, and made fast to the feet of his elephants, which were then obliged to drag them about till their limbs fell in pieces from their bodies. At the same time, he ordered all the churches and temples to be burned or pulled down or destroyed in some manner. Christian and pagan [Hindu] women were compelled to marry Mohammedans. The pagans were deprived of the token of their nobility, which is a lock of hair called kudumi; and every Christian, who appeared in the streets, must either submit to be circumcised, or be hanged on the spot. This happened in the year 1789, at which time I resided at Verapole [Varapali in Travancore]. I had then an opportunity of conversing with several Christians and Pagans, who had escaped from the fury of this merciless tyrant; and I assisted these fugitives to procure a boat to enable them to cross the river which runs past that city. This persecution continued till the 15th of April 1790."

"“Ayodhya, an ancient Indian city, where the first Indian monarchs on the Ganges resided, was situated on the river Deva, in the latitude of 250, exactly in the spot where Faizabad now stands. It was the birthplace of Shirama, or Rama, an Indian hero, or the younger Bacchus, whose heroic achievements were celebrated in songs before the times of the Pagan Indians.”"

"The creative individual, whether in art or science, is less psychologically separated from his surroundings than the non-creative one; the "I-you" barrier is not as clearly defined."

"The self in the psychoanalytic sense is variable and by no means coextensive with the limits of the personality as assessed by an observer of the social field."

"The antithesis to narcissism is not the object relation but object love."

"States the self may expand far beyond the borders of the individual, or it may shrink and become identical with a single one of his actions or aims."

"The dictatorships, whether Fascist or Bolshevist, have been able to conceal their innumerable defeats only by ruthlessly using both the gag and the lie."

"The succession of events since 1914 has swept away so many illusions that even a summary inspection of the heap of ideological ruins would demand the compilation of a veritable encyclopaedia. The summer of 1914 witnessed the collapse of all those hopes which had been built on a peaceful evolution of the capitalist world, and it also witnessed the breakdown of ."

"For almost a quarter of a century the affairs of the world and its ideas have been in indescribable confusion. In most cases the confusion of ideas is manifest without the aid of polemic or controversy. It is simple evidence of the chaotic state of the world."

"The world crisis which began in 1929, the longest ever known, caused people entirely unconnected with and even hostile to the working-class movement to speak of 'crisis' and even of the 'collapse of capitalism'. [...] The economic and financial smash of 1929 ruthlessly disposed of the illusion that capitalism was about to experience an era of lasting prosperity and harmony. Liberalism observed with horror that the actual course of ignored all its good advice. Today the doctrine of liberalism is practically dead, but, at least, its few remaining defenders can console themselves by noting the disastrous effects of ."

"The celebrated phrase, 'so much the worse for the facts', would satisfy only the high priests of Marxism, for Marxism also has its high priests, and these priests, like all others, daily deny the principles they claim to defend. Bolshevism is a living proof of this."

"Marxist theoreticians have heard too much, in season and out of season, about 'the crisis of Marxism' to be unduly moved by the latest anti-Marxist challenge, particularly as it coincided, oddly enough, with the practical confirmation of the essential theses of Karl Marx in the economic crash of 1929-36. In writing this book it was certainly not our intention to rebut the old stale arguments once again with old and equally stale answers. The same well-worn gramophone record has given satisfaction since the end of the last century."

"Marxism is not a dogma at all; it is a method of investigation. Seeing that the conditions of our day differ considerably from those studied by Marx, what are the new problems which contemporary Marxism has to solve? They certainly cannot be solved by reeling off a few quotations learned by heart."

"The real crisis through which Marxism is passing is not due to this relaxation of intellectual discipline on the part of some of those who call themselves followers of Marx. Unfortunately, the habit of praising or blaming without knowledge of the subject is becoming increasingly common to men of all parties today. This is not due to the failure of this or that doctrine, but to the crisis through which our whole civilisation is passing. At the same time this regrettable tendency adds greatly to the confusion in which all the sociological disputes of our day are taking place."

"In the general collapse of values all around us it is not surprising that Marxism should also be subjected to critical attacks. A failure in the eyes of its enemies, even many of its friends admit that it is going through a severe crisis. Certain self-styled 'orthodox' Marxists, more in love with the letter than the spirit of the writings of Marx and Engels, have provided the less scrupulous critics of Marxism with weighty arguments. However, this category of 'academic Marxists' is becoming less and less numerous, and today we can observe their place being increasingly taken by people with far less knowledge and even greater pretensions: half-a-dozen quotations lifted from this or that popular pamphlet serve them instead of doctrine, and represent in their eyes the sum total of Marxist science. Most of the anti-Marxists of our day reveal the same intellectual poverty."

"Let us define what we mean by Marxism. Is it the doctrine of Marx and Engels? Or is it the movements to which that doctrine has given birth, and which, rightly or wrongly, claim to be Marxist? To what extent are these movements actually inspired by Marxism, and to what extent have they caused it to develop, sometimes reforming, sometimes deforming it? Are these movements still really Marxist in the classic sense? Or do perhaps both friends and enemies of Marxism often harbour a distorted conception of Marx’s original theories? We must therefore ask ourselves whether the so-called crisis of Marxism is not in large measure a crisis of differing posthumous interpretations of Marxism. Karl Marx died in 1883 and Friedrich Engels in 1895. Although a number of their followers have developed their doctrines and provided important supplementary analyses of the modifications experienced by capitalism in the course of the twentieth century, the results of these labours have hardly affected the movement as a whole. In fact, as the movement grew in size, the assimilation even of the ideas of Marx and Engels themselves, which were naturally better known, became slower, more fragmentary and more superficial. In accordance with historical conditions which obviously differed considerably as between country and country, each movement took what best suited it from the original doctrine, and applied its choice (very rarely the Marxist method itself) to its own particular situation."

"Bolshevism, which once aspired to supplant tottering capitalism, is now in a state of incurable degeneration both at home in Russia and internationally."

"Many people declare that democracy, too, is bankrupt. It is certainly true that democracy has lost much ground in recent years, and is now face to face with a serious crisis, but we do not believe that it is bankrupt."

"In this sense we can speak of a 'decomposition' of Marxism. In ignoring the important fundamental contribution of the followers of Marx, and by insisting exclusively on the phenomenon of superficial adaptation and variation, Sorel passed in silence over all that was healthy, live and fruitful in the Marxist doctrine."

"Österreich ist ein Labyrinth, in dem sich jeder auskennt. Helmut Qualtinger" - (Austria is a labyrinth everbody in is familiar with.) - Print over the post stamp "Am Steinernen Meer Salzburg", austrian Post AG (federal postal service), 1. Juli 2003; Austria-Forum.org, Überdruckmarke "Zitat Qualtinger"

""In Wien mußt' erst sterben, damit sie dich hochleben lassen. Aber dann lebst' lang." - (In Vienna you first 've to die, before they celebrate you. But then you're living long.) - Necrology in german magazine DER SPIEGEL 6. Okt. 1986. Sometimes falsely attributed to Johann Hölzel, known as the musician Falco."

"Donald O'Brien (actor) about Helmuth Qualtinger in his last role in "The Name of the Rose": "[...] And there was one brilliant German or Austrian actor on this movie who looked like Falstaff, big, fat guy, a marvellous presence. Helmut Qualtinger was his name. He was terrific!" - in Gunslingers, Cannibals, and more... An Interview with Donald O´Brien (March 1996), Christian Kessler for Euro Trash Cinema magazine"

"Feelings of love and gratitude arise directly and spontaneously in the baby in response to the love and care of his mother."

"Man is alone in the world, in tremendous eternal isolation. He has no object outside himself; lives for nothing else; he is far removed from being the slave of his wishes, of his abilities, of his necessities; he stands far above social ethics; he is alone. Thus he becomes one and all."

"The logical axioms are the principle of all truth. These posit an existence towards which all cognition serves. Logic is a law which must be obeyed, and man realises himself only in so far as he is logical. He finds himself in cognition. All error must be felt to be crime. And so man must not err. He must find the truth."

"That which enables man to have a real relation to truth and which removes his temptation to lie, must be something independent of all time, something absolutely unchangeable, which as faithfully reproduces the old as if it were new, because it is permanent itself; it can only be that source in which all discrete experiences unite and which creates from the first a continuous existence. It is what produces the feeling of responsibility which oppresses all men, young and old, as to their actions, which makes them know that they are responsible, which leads to the phenomena of repentance and consciousness of sin, which calls to account before an eternal and ever present self things that are long past, its judgment being subtler and more comprehensive than that of any court of law or of the laws of society, and which is exerted by the individual himself quite independently of all social codes (so condemning the moral psychology which would derive morality from the social life of man)."

"The deepest, the intelligible, part of the nature of man is that part which does not take refuge in causality, but which chooses in freedom the good or the bad."

"Memory, then, is a necessary part of the logical faculty. … The proposition A = A must have a psychological relation to time, otherwise it would be At1 = At2."

"The great man of science, unless he is also a philosopher, … deserves the title of genius as little as the man of action."