Best Albert J. Nock Quotes
- As might be supposed, my parents were quite poor, but we somehow never seemed to lack anything we needed, and I never saw a trace… Cheerfulness
- The civilization of a country consists in the quality of life that is lived there, and this quality shows plainest in the things that people… Choose
- Considered now as a possession, one may define culture as the residuum of a large body of useless knowledge that has been well and truly… Been
- I am said to be difficult of acquaintance, unwilling to meet any one half way, and showing a social manner which is easy, not diffident,… Acquaintance
- Useless knowledge can be made directly contributory to a force of sound and disinterested public opinion. Contributory
- The position of modern science, as far as an ignorant man of letters can understand it, seems not a step in advance of that held… Advance
- Like all predatory or parasitic institutions, the state's first instinct is that of self-preservati on. All its enterprises are directed first towards preserving its own… Activity
- The idea that the State originated to serve any kind of social purpose is completely unhistorical. It originated in conquest and confiscation-th at is to… Any
- Money does not pay for anything, never has, never will. It is an economic axiom as old as the hills that goods and services can… Anything Never
- The question of who is right and who is wrong has seemed to me always too small to be worth a moment's thought, while the… All
- As far as I know, I have no pride of opinion. Far
- Concerning culture as a process, one would say that it means learning a great many things and then forgetting them; and the forgetting is as… Concerning
- Diligent as one must be in learning, one must be as diligent in forgetting; otherwise the process is one of pedantry, not culture. Culture
- Like Prince von Bismarck in diplomacy, I have no secrets. Bismarck
- Organized Christianity has always represented immortality as a sort of common heritage; but I never could see why spiritual life should not be conditioned on… All
- Perhaps one reason for the falling-off of belief in a continuance of conscious existence is to be found in the quality of life that most… Any
- Perhaps the prevalence of pedantry may be largely accounted for by the common error of thinking that, because useful knowledge should be remembered, any kind… Accounted
- The business of a scientific school is the dissemination of useful knowledge, and this is a noble enterprise and indispensable withal; society can not exist… Business
- The mentality of an army on the march is merely so much delayed adolescence; it remains persistently, incorrigibly and notoriously infantile. Adolescence
- Assuming that man has a distinct spiritual nature, a soul, why should it be thought unnatural that under appropriate conditions of maladjustment, his soul might… Appropriate
- The positive testimony of history is that the State invariably had its origin in conquest and confiscation. No primitive State known to history originated in… Any
- The mind is like the stomach. It not how much you put into it, but how much it digests. Digests
- The mind is like the stomach. It is not how much you put into it that counts, but how much it digests. Counts
- Life has obliged him to remember so much useful knowledge that he has lost not only his history, but his whole original cargo of useless… All
- The university's business is the conservation of useless knowledge; and what the university itself apparently fails to see is that this enterprise is not only… Apparently