Ernst Quotes & Sayings

The (capital punishment) controversy passes the anarch by. For him, the linking of death and punishment is absurd. In this respect, he is closer to the wrongdoer than to the judge, for the high-ranking culprit who is condemned to death is not prepared to acknowledge his sentence as atonement; rather, he sees his guilt in his own inadequacy. Thus, he recognizes himself not as a moral but as a tragic person. — Ernst Junger

The principle of [divine] purpose ... stares the biologist in the face wherever he looks ... The probability for such an event as the origin of DNA molecules to have occurred by sheer chance is just too small to be seriously considered. — Ernst Boris Chain

Tears are the messengers of true love. — Ernst Moritz Arndt

A colour is a physical object as soon as we consider its dependence, for instance, upon its luminous source, upon other colours, upon temperatures, upon spaces, and so forth. — Ernst Mach

All the old bogeys of 'dignified subject-matter,' of 'balanced compositions,' of 'correct drawing' were laid to rest. The artist was responsible to no one but his own sensibilities for what he painted and how he painted it. — Ernst Gombrich

The awakening of a new basic attitude towards existence is not the first thing that we must do, but the first thing that must happen in us... Only when this completely irrational, above - moral, and above - personal transformation has taken place inside of us will all instructions given here gain a sense. There is no directive and no rule which could replace this unique act or could be compared with it. — Ernst Schertel

Demonstrating the importance of being Ernst as the marketing department put it. — Charles Stross

The real cause of personal existence is not the favor of the Almighty, but the sexual love of one's earthly parents. — Ernst Haeckel

The special trait making me an anarch is that I live in a world which I 'ultimately' do not take seriously. This increases my freedom; I serve as a temporary volunteer — Ernst Junger

I could not bank on the phlegmatic Chinese; I would have to take care of it myself. This would be safer and also consistent with my own responsibility. The latter is the anarch's ultimate authority. — Ernst Junger

On Ernst Lubitsch: He could do more with a closed door than other directors could do with an open fly. — Billy Wilder

The poets are a harmless little folk, with their dreams and raptures and heaven full of Greek gods that they carry about with them in their fantasy. But they become wicked as soon as they presume to hold their ideal up to reality and then flail the latter angrily, when they should have nothing at all to do with it. They would, nevertheless, remain harmless if they were only granted their free little place in reality un disturbed and not compelled through crowding and pressure to cast a backward glance at it, for it reaches beyond the clouds, and they themselves cannot survey it all and must cling to the stars as provisory border points, of which, however, who knows how many are yet today invisible, their light still in the process of journeying down to us. — Ernst August Friedrich Klingemann

The best zoom lens is your legs. — Ernst Haas

Compare King William with the philosopher Haeckel. The king is one of the anointed by the most high, as they claim - one upon whose head has been poured the divine petroleum of authority. Compare this king with Haeckel, who towers an intellectual colossus above the crowned mediocrity. Compare George Eliot with Queen Victoria. The Queen is clothed in garments given her by blind fortune and unreasoning chance, while George Eliot wears robes of glory woven in the loom of her own genius.
The world is beginning to pay homage to intellect, to genius, to heart.
We have advanced. We have reaped the benefit of every sublime and heroic self-sacrifice, of every divine and brave act; and we should endeavor to hand the torch to the next generation, having added a little to the intensity and glory of the flame. — Robert G. Ingersoll

She's always had her own, ah, compass. — Dee Ernst

Democracy has no convictions for which people would be willing to stake their lives. — Ernst Hanfstaengl

A brief visit to Nepal started my insatiable love for Asian art. — Richard Ernst

People of this world, look upon this city and see that you should not and cannot abandon this city and this people. — Ernst Reuter

Ernst Dwinger in his Siberian Diary
mentions a German lieutenant - for years a prisoner in a camp where cold and hunger were almost
unbearable - who constructed himself a silent piano with wooden keys. In the most abject misery,
perpetually surrounded by a ragged mob, he composed a strange music which was audible to him alone.
And for us who have been thrown into hell, mysterious melodies and the torturing images of a vanished
beauty will always bring us, in the midst of crime and folly, the echo of that harmonious insurrection
which bears witness, throughout the centuries, to the greatness of humanity. — Albert Camus

Ernst was still in the Eastern Zone, about ninety kilometres from Berlin, when the truck emerged so inexplicably out of nowhere that it seemed to have been created by the rain itself. — Mordecai Richler

They managed to sleep together, but there wasn't enough for dreaming. — Ernst Moritz Arndt

I suggest that the foundations of peace cannot be laid by universal prosperity, in the modem sense. because such prosperity, if attainable at all. is attainable only by cultivating such drives of human nature as greed and envy, which destroy intelligence, happiness, serenity, and thereby the peacefulness of man. — Ernst F. Schumacher

Many an article that I myself penned twenty years ago impresses me now as something quite foreign to myself. — Ernst Mach

We are compelled by reflection to recognize that God is not to be placed against the material world [as in Christianity], but must be placed as a 'divine power' or 'moving spirit' within the cosmos itself ... All the wonderful phenomena of nature around us, organic as well as inorganic, are only various products of one and the same original force. — Ernst Haeckel

Man is that which has still much before it. He is repeatedly transformed in his work and by it. [...] The authentic in man and in the world is potential, waiting, living in fear of being frustrated, living in hope of succeeding. — Ernst Bloch

Genetically, I have tons of musical background in my life. My mother's father was a famous Weimar-era composer, Ernst Toch. My father's mother was the head of the Vienna Conservatory's piano department. It all canceled out in my case. I'm completely hopeless in music. — Lawrence Weschler

Seeing depends on knowledge / And knowledge, of course, on your college / But when you are erudite and wise / What matters is to use your eyes. — Ernst Gombrich

Thought experiment is in any case a necessary precondition for physical experiment. Every experimenter and inventor must have the planned arrangement in his head before translating it into fact. — Ernst Mach

Throughout the war, it was always my endeavour to view my opponent without animus, and to form an opinion of him as a man on the basis of the courage he showed. I would always try and seek him out in combat and kill him, and I expected nothing else from him. But never did I entertain mean thoughts of him. When prisoners fell into my hands, later on, I felt responsible for their safety, and would always do everything in my power for them.
p. 58 — Ernst Junger

Personally, people know themselves very poorly. — Ernst Mach

Photography is a bridge between science and art. It brings to science what it needs most, the artistic sense, and to art the proof that nothing can be imagined which cannot be matched in the counterpoints of nature. — Ernst Haas

Most of the people near Hitler were mental breast-stroke swimmers. — Ernst Hanfstaengl

There is only you and your camera. The limitations in your photography are in yourself, for what we see is what we are. — Ernst Haas

Similarly, many a young man, hearing for the first time of the refraction of stellar light, has thought that doubt was cast on the whole of astronomy, whereas nothing is required but an easily effected and unimportant correction to put everything right again. — Ernst Mach

As our mother earth is a mere speck in the sunbeam in the illimitable universe, so man himself is but a tiny grain of protoplasm in the perishable framework of organic nature. [This] clearly indicates the true place of man in nature, but it dissipates the prevalent illusion of man's supreme importance and the arrogance with which he sets himself apart from the illimitable universe and exalts himself to the position of its most valuable element. — Ernst Haeckel

For the three years I lived in New York leading up to moving out to Los Angeles for 'Mad Men,' I was an office temp at Ernst & Young in Times Square. That's about as desk-jobby as it can get. There was a lot of, 'Go two floors up and make a copy of this and then bring it to me.' — Rich Sommer

Where faith commences, science ends. Both these arts of the human mind must be strictly kept apart from each other. Faith has its origin in the poetic imagination; knowledge, on the other hand, originates in the reasoning intelligence of man. Science has to pluck the blessed fruits from the tree of knowledge, unconcerned whether these conquests trench upon the poetical imaginings of faith or not. — Ernst Haeckel

Anti-Semitism is not based on strictly religious grounds and is not directed against the Jewish faith as such. However, all German Christians resent and denounce the fact that the Jews have been the chief advocates of atheism. They have influenced the workers' children through the Communist youth organizations, of which they are the leading spirit ... — Ernst Hanfstaengl

The anarch is oriented to facts, not ideas. He fights alone, as a free man, and would never dream of sacrificing himself to having one inadequacy supplant another and a new regime triumph over the old one. In this sense, he is closer to the philistine; the baker whose chief concern is to bake good bread; the peasant, who works his plow while armies march across his fields. — Ernst Junger

Life is simply the reification of the process of living. — Ernst Mayr

New gene pools are generated in every generation, and evolution takes place because the successful individuals produced by these gene pools give rise to the next generation. — Ernst Mayr

There is more to biology than rats, Drosophila, Caenorhabditis, and E. coli. — Ernst Mayr

Beware of color theories. Theories in color photography are dangerous. The plain fact that there are so many of them proves my point. — Ernst Haas

Every normal human being (and not merely the 'artist') has an inexhaustible store of buried images in his subconscious, it is merely a matter of courage or liberating procedures ... of voyages into the unconscious, to bring pure and unadulterated found objects to light. — Max Ernst

We need to preserve programs like Social Security and Medicare for our seniors of today and tomorrow. But we need to strengthen both Social Security and Medicare to make sure these programs are still available for future generations. — Joni Ernst

The greatest reward lies in making the discovery; recognition can add little or nothing to that. — Franz Ernst Neumann

Slogans which deafened us so that we could not hear the truth. — Ernst Toller

At the sight of the Neckar slopes wreathed with flowering cherry trees, I had a strong sense of having come home. What a beautiful country it was, and eminently worth our blood and our lives. Never before had I felt its charm so clearly. I had good and serious thoughts, and for the first time I sensed that this war was more than just a great adventure.
p. 33 — Ernst Junger

I am speaking, as I know it is rude to do, of the Social Darwinists, the eugenicists, the Imperialists, the Scientific Socialists who showed such firmness in reshaping civilization in Eastern Europe, China, Cambodia, and elsewhere, and, yes, of the Nazis. Darwin influenced the nationalist writer Heinrich von Treitschke and the biologist Ernst Haeckel, who influenced Hitler and also the milieu in which he flourished. — Marilynne Robinson

I grew up working for the minimum wage at Hardee's and knows first hand how important the minimum wage is. I support a state based minimum wage so every state can set their own minimum wage based on their cost of living. — Joni Ernst

When stars are in the quiet skies, Then most I pine for thee; Bend on me, then, thy tender eyes, As stars look on the sea. — Ernst Gottlieb Baron

I am, as a European, absolutely shocked by European people. I am also shocked by European nationalist people. They have allowed themselves to be so emasculated so silently. — Ernst Zundel

To learn a new language is, therefore, always a sort of spiritual adventure; it is like a journey of discovery in which we find a new world. — Ernst Cassirer

[Human beings] will begin to recover the moment we take art as seriously as physics, chemistry or money. — Ernst Levy

As a soldier and combat veteran, I believe American military forces should only be used in the defense and furtherance of our nation's vital interests. — Joni Ernst

The job of the director is to suggest two plus two. Let the viewer say four. — Ernst Lubitsch

We had proudly worn our handsome and colorful uniforms, which could be seen glittering from a distance, yet we could no longer see our opponent. Invisible marksmen took aim from long range and unhorsed us. If we managed to reach them, we found them bedded in a web of wires, which cut through the fetlocks of the horses and was impossible to jump. This was the end of the cavalry. We had to dismount. — Ernst Junger

At times I see them as if I were walking through the streets of Pompeii before the eruption of Vesuvius. This is one of the historian's delights and, even more, his sorrow. If we see someone doing something for the last time, even just eating a piece of bread, this activity becomes wondrously profound. We participate in the transmutation of the ephemeral into the sacramental. We have inklings of eras during which such a sight was an everyday occurrence. — Ernst Junger

This was the home of the great god Pain, and for the first time I looked through a devilish chink into the depths of his realm. And fresh shells came down all the time. — Ernst Junger

As machines become more and more efficient and perfect, so it will become clear that imperfection is the greatness of man. — Ernst Fischer

I saw the dead without really seeing them. — Ernst Toller

The agent which cures prevents, and the agent that prevents cures. — Ernst T. Krebs

Mental differences between the lowest men and the animals are less than those between the lowest and the highest man. — Ernst Haeckel

In every artist there is poetry. In every human being there is the poetic element. We know, we feel, we believe. — Ernst Haas

The patent system was established, I believe, to protect the lone inventor. In this it has not succeeded. ... The patent system protects the institutions which favor invention. — Ernst Alexanderson

At the root of all power and motion, there is music and rhythm, the play of patterned frequencies against the matrix of time. We know that every particle in the physical universe takes its characteristics from the pitch and pattern and overtones of its particular frequencies, its singing. Before we make music, music makes us. — Joachim-Ernst Berendt

A general is a specialist insofar as he has master his craft. Beyond that and outside the arbitrary pro and con, he keeps a third possibility intact and in reserve: his own substance. He knows more than what he embodies and teaches, has other skills along with the ones for which he is paid. He keeps all that to himself; it is his property. It is set aside for his leisure, his soliloquies, his nights. At a propitious moment, he will put it into action, tear off his mask. So far, he has been racing well; within sight is the finish line, his final reserves start pouring in. Fate challenges him; he responds. The dream, even in an erotic encounter, comes true. But causally, even here; every goal is a transition for him. The bow should snap rather than aiming the arrow at a finite target. — Ernst Junger

We should listen less to the opinions of those who either overtly promote or stubbornly reject complementary and alternative medicine without acceptable evidence. The many patients who use complementary and alternative medicine deserve better. Patients and healthcare providers need to know which forms are safe and effective. Its future should (and hopefully will) be determined by unbiased scientific evaluation. — Edzard Ernst

My unlucky star had destined me to be born when there was much talk about morality and, at the same time, more murders than in any other period. There is, undoubtedly, some connection between these phenomena. I sometime ask myself whether the connection was a priori, since these babblers are cannibals from the start - or a connection a posteriori, since they inflate themselves with their moralizing to a height which becomes dangerous for others.
However that may be, I was always happy to meet a person who owed his touch of common sense and good manners to his parents and who didn't need big principles. I do not claim more for myself, and I am a man who for an entire lifetime has been moralized at to the right and the left - by teachers and superiors, by policemen and journalists, by Jews and Gentiles, by inhabitants of the Alps, of islands, and the plains, by cut-throats and aristocrats - all of whom looked as if butter wouldn't melt in their mouths. — Ernst Junger

Evolution, thus, is merely contingent on certain processes articulated by Darwin: variation and selection. No longer is a fixed object transformed, as in transformational evolution, but an entirely new start is, so to speak, made in every generation. — Ernst W. Mayr

In the U.S. Senate, in the short term we need to reduce the tax burden on hard working individuals, families, and small businesses. — Joni Ernst

I do not feel guilty of any war crimes, I have only done my duty as an intelligence organ, and I refuse to serve as an ersatz for Himmler. — Ernst Kaltenbrunner

The history of science knows scores of instances where an investigator was in the possession of all the important facts for a new theory but simply failed to ask the right questions. — Ernst Mayr

The virtue of pride, which was once the beauty of mankind, has given place to that fount of ugliness, Christian humility. — Max Ernst

If suffering can be transformed into creativity ... I want to try it. — Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

A sound marriage is not based on complete frankness; it is based on a sensible reticence. — Morris L. Ernst

What we have to do now is to make the public at large aware that what we're looking at is not a historical event but - and I have to be brutal and I am going to say it - a racket. — Ernst Zundel

Religion claims to be in possession of an absolute truth; but its history is a history of errors and heresies. It gives us the promise and prospect of a transcendent world - far beyond the limits of our human experience - and it remains human, all too human. — Ernst Cassirer

The notion that only those who preach the gospel of integrated medicine are able to perform the art of medicine is as ridiculous as it is insulting to everyone in healthcare who does his/her best to meet the needs of their patients. The assumption that unproven or disproven treatments become acceptable simply because they are often administered in a kind and caring fashion is quite simply not true. — Edzard Ernst

How happy I am to go to the front at last. To do my bit. To prove with my life what I think I feel. — Ernst Toller

There is no formula. There are only confirmations to formulas which one has already discovered oneself. — Ernst Haas

To say that life is nothing but a property of certain peculiar combinations of atoms is like saying that Shakespeare's Hamlet is nothing but a property of a peculiar combination of letters. — Ernst F. Schumacher

Their fiery advance and great tenacity were well recognized by their opponents. — Ernst Otto Fischer

Teleology is a lady without whom no biologist can live. Yet he is ashamed to show himself with her in public. — Ernst Wilhelm Von Brucke

When I recall today my early youth, I should take the boy that I then was, with the exception of a few individual features, for a different person, were it not for the existence of the chain of memories. — Ernst Mach

Photography is a transformation, not a reproduction. — Ernst Haas

I never make a mistake on the first move! — Ernst Grunfeld

You don't need to come from wealth or privilege to make a difference, — Joni Ernst

I have done my duty by the laws of my people and I am sorry my people were led this time by men who were not soldiers and that crimes were committed of which I had no knowledge. — Ernst Kaltenbrunner

The role of the painter ... is to project that which sees itself in him. — Max Ernst

I let the audience use their imaginations. Can I help it if they misconstrue my suggestions? — Ernst Lubitsch

How a club is run is what matters to me. The fewer board members, the better. If it's 18, I'm just not interested. — Ernst Happel

Man is pre-eminently endowed with the power of voluntarily and consciously determining his own point of view. — Ernst Mach

Russia demanded Armenian territories, very cleverly using long-standing, bitter fights between Armenians and Turks. — Ernst Kaltenbrunner

Solving Problems with NMR Spectroscopy is a very welcome addition to the existing literature. It fulfills a real need for an up-to-date and authoritatively written introduction for students and practitioners of NMR. — Richard Ernst

I would rather instill in my amateur students love, than knowledge, of music. Left with only knowledge, they will at the end close their books and consign the course to forgetfulness. But if they have learned to love but the smallest part of the art, they are likely to pursue some phase of it the rest of their lives. — Ernst Bacon

We ourselves are the last to notice that we are not making any headway. It is brought to our notice from the outside; former students suddenly emerge as our superiors. As we grow older, the respect we receive diminishes: the disproportion between our age and our position becomes evident, first to other people and finally to ourselves. Then it is time to retreat. — Ernst Junger

I begin with movement ... I believe that all human visual experiences are born from movement ... — Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

What do I miss, as a human being, if I have never heard of the Second Law of Thermodynamics? The answer is: Nothing. And what do I miss by not knowing Shakespeare? Unless I get my understanding from another source, I simply miss my life. Shall we tell our children that one thing is as good as another-- here a bit of knowledge of physics, and there a bit of knowledge of literature? If we do so, the sins of the fathers will be visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation, because that normally is the time it takes from the birth of an idea to its full maturity when it fills the minds of a new generation and makes them think by it.

Science cannot produce ideas by which we could live. — Ernst F. Schumacher

Art has nothing to do with taste. Art is not there to be tasted — Max Ernst