John von Neumann Quotes

With four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk.

John von Neumann

• Elephant

• Previous
• Next

Quotes to Explore

• It was my fortune, or misfortune, to be called to the office of Chief Executive without any previous political training.

  

  Ulysses S. Grant
  • Political
  • Training
  • Office

• There's something so quirky and fun and nerdy about the Tony Awards... We're dorks being silly up there.

  

  Barrett Foa
  • Up
  • Fun
  • Silly

• We thought about it, what we want to tell, and I didn't want to move it directly into the Nazi times. I thought it's much more interesting to see how BloodRayne became BloodRayne.

  

  Uwe Boll
  • Want
  • Interesting
  • Thought

• My father used to administer herbal medicine for free. But I can't give drugs for free. So the next best thing is to give it at as low a price as possible.

  

  Kallam Anji Reddy
  • Father
  • Free
  • Best

• I don't at all like knowing what people say of me behind my back. It makes me far too conceited.

  

  Oscar Wilde
  • People
  • Say
  • Knowing

• The difference between us is that we're using missile defense to protect our civilians and they're using their civilians to protect their missiles.

  

  Benjamin Netanyahu

• All those angry, uneducated Trump supporters seemed to understand what his policies were. They figured it out by listening to him. It was only fair. No one listened to Trump, except the voters; and no one listened to the voters, except Trump.

  

  Ann Coulter
  • Listening
  • Trump
  • Angry

• I call white the most powerful non-color; it's clean, optimistic, powerful.

  

  Jason Wu
  • Powerful
  • Color
  • Optimistic

• I'm a compulsive storyteller, an avid reader, and have always nurtured the secret goal of spending my life as a writer.

  

  Astro Teller
  • Life

• We account for one-sixth of the forces of gravity we see in the universe. There is no known objects accounting for most of the effective gravity in the universe. Something is making stuff move that is not anything we have ever touched.

  

  Neil deGrasse Tyson
  • Universe

• I think the greatest of people in society carved niches that represented the unique expression of their combinations of talents, and if everyone had the luxury of expressing the unique combinations of talents in this world, our society would be transformed overnight.

  

  Neil deGrasse Tyson
  • People
  • World
  • Society

• One culture I find fascinating to juxtapose against American culture is the culture of Germany. They've gone through a long process through their art, poetry, public discourse, their politics, of owning the fact of their complicity in what happened in World War II. It's still a topic of everyday conversation in Germany.

  

  Chris Jordan
  • World
  • Long
  • Art

• As an actor I've been attracted to the sort of films that I want to go and see. That tends to usually be drama-related.

  

  Eric Bana
  • Drama

• There's no substitute for experiencing ups and downs - seeing how it's okay that things are overwhelming or broken sometimes and how companies recover from mistakes.

  

  Joe Lonsdale
  • Broken

• I was a singing guitar player as a kid, and I found it really embarrassing, so I stopped singing and became a drummer.

  

  James Murphy
  • Player
  • Singing

• I hate the Chinese government. If you do not want to embrace North Korean defectors in your country, I understand. But we have a country where we can seek asylum. So please, let us freely pass through. Why are you doing your best to try and catch defectors?

  

  Lee Hyeon-seo
  • Country
  • Why
  • Hate

• Our culture is more shaped by the arts and humanities than it often is by politics.

  

  James A. Leach
  • Culture
  • Politics
  • Shape

• They had a person who was extremely proud that a number of the women had become doctors. And I wasn't interested.

  

  Donald Trump
  • Women
  • Proud

• To change your circumstances, first start thinking differently. Do not passively accept unsatisfactory circumstances, but form a picture in your mind of circumstances as they should be. Believe and succeed.

  

  Norman Vincent Peale
  • Thinking
  • Change
  • Circumstances

• There's an academic tradition called the 'Last Lecture.' Hypothetically, if you knew you were going to die and you had one last lecture, what would you say to your students? Well, for me, there's an elephant in the room. And the elephant in the room, for me, it wasn't hypothetical.

  

  Randy Pausch
  • Die
  • Tradition
  • Elephant

• I'm for conservation, but it's mostly a con. That's the trouble. It's sentimental. Buy an elephant a drink, a lion an acre.

  

  Peter Beard
  • Lion
  • Elephant

• As the elephant is powerless to think in the terms of the ant, in spite of the best intentions in the world, even so is the Englishman powerless to think in the terms of, or legislate for, the Indian.

  

  Mahatma Gandhi
  • Elephant
  • Englishman
  • Legislate

• Their version of rock-paper-scissors was elephant - fist, mouse - palm, and ant - little finger. The elephant crushed the mouse, the mouse squashed the ant, and the ant crawled up the elephant’s trunk and paralyzed his brain.

  

  Colin Cotterill
  • Elephant
  • Version
  • Mouse

• With four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk.

  

  John von Neumann
  • Elephant