Autobiographical

How one carries on in the face of unavoidable catastrophe is a matter of temperament. In high school, as was custom, I had chosen a verse by Virgil to be my motto: Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito. “Do not give in to evil, but proceed ever more boldly against it.” I recalled these words during the darkest hours of the war. Again and again I had met with situations from which rational deliberation found no means of escape; but then the unexpected intervened, and with it came salvation. I would not lose courage even now. I wanted to do everything an economist could do. I would not tire in saying what I knew to be true.

Notes and Recollections, p. 70

Otto Bauer was too bright not to realize that I was right, but he never forgave me for having turned him into a Millerand. The attacks of his fellow Bolshevists hit close to home, but he directed his animosity toward me instead of toward his opponents. A powerful loather, he opted for ignoble means to destroy me. He attempted to incite the nationalistic students and professors at the University of Vienna to turn against me. The assault miscarried.

Notes and Recollections, pp. 18–19

From time to time I entertained the hope that my writings would bear practical fruit and show the way for policy. I have always looked for evidence of a change in ideology. But I never actually deceived myself; my theories explain, but cannot slow the decline of a great civilization. I set out to be a reformer, but only became the historian of decline.

Notes and Recollections, p. 115