Wilhelm Von Humboldt Quotes
I am more and more convinced that our happiness or our unhappiness depends far more on the way we meet the events of life than on the nature of those events themselves.
Governmental regulations all carry coercion to some degree, and even where they don't, they habituate man to expect teaching, guidance and help outside himself, instead of formulating his own.
If we glance at the most important revolutions in history, we see at once that the greatest number of these originated in the periodical revolutions of the human mind.
If the mind loves solitude, it has thereby acquired a loftier character, and it becomes still more noble when the taste is indulged in.
The more a man acts on his own, the more he develops himself. In large associations he is too prone to become merely an instrument.
To inquire and to create; these are the grand centres around which all human pursuits revolve, or at least to these objects do they all more or less directly refer.
To judge a man means nothing more than to ask: What content does he give to the form of humanity? What concept should we have of humanity if he were its only representative?
The most beautiful, perhaps the only true philosophical song existing in any known tongue ....perhaps the deepest and loftiest thing the world has to show.
Samskrit is the unsurpassed zenith in the whole development of languages yet known to us.
Life, in all ranks and situations, is an outward occupation, an actual and active work.
Among men who are really free, every form of industry becomes more rapidly improved - all the arts flourish more gracefully - all the sciences extend their range.
It is a characteristic of old age to find the progress of time accelerated. The less one accomplishes in a given time, the shorter does the retrospect appear.
Coercion may prevent many transgressions; but it robs even actions which are legal of a part of their beauty. Freedom may lead to many transgressions, but it lends even to vices a less ignoble form.
Faith can be interested in results only, for a truth once recognized as such puts an end to the believer's thinking.
Real inward devotion knows no prayer but that arising from the depths of its own feelings.
The price of apparent happiness and enjoyment is the neglect of the spontaneous active energies of the acting members.
If we reason that we want happiness for others, not for ourselves, then we ought justly to be suspected of failing to recognize human nature for what it is and of wishing to turn men into machines.
The sorrow which calls for help and comfort is not the greatest, nor does it come from the depths of the heart.
Even sleep is characteristic. How beautiful are children in their lovely innocence! how angel-like their blooming features! and how painful and anxious is the sleep of the guilty!
War seems to be one of the most salutary phenomena for the culture of human nature; and it is not without regret that I see it disappearing more and more from the scene.
Women are in this respect more fortunate than men, that most of their employments are of such a nature that they can at the same time be thinking of quite different things.
The State is not in itself an end, but is only a means towards human development.
The legislator should keep two things constantly before his eyes: 1. The pure theory developed to its minutest details; 2. The particular condition of actual things which he designs to reform.
Wherever the citizen becomes indifferent to his fellows, so will the husband be to his wife, and the father of a family toward the members of his household.
All translating seems to me to be simply an attempt to accomplish an impossible task.
A man must seek his happiness and inward peace from objects which cannot be taken away from him.
Government, religion, property, books, are nothing but the scaffolding to build men. Earth holds up to her master no fruit like the finished man.
It is almost more important how a person takes his fate than what it is. And the best way is with gratitude while trying to improve it for the good of others and themselves.
In the moral world there is nothing impossible if we can bring a thorough will to it. Man can do everything with himself, but he must not attempt to do too much with others.
Possession, it is true, crowns exertion with rest; but it is only in the illusions of fancy that it has power to charm us.
Happiness is so nonsynonymous with joy or pleasure that it is not infrequently sought and felt in grief and deprivation.
All situations in which the interrelationships between extremes are involved are the most interesting and instructive.
No matter how good or great a man may be, there is yet a better and a greater man within him.
It is continued temperance which sustains the body for the longest period of time, and which most surely preserves it free from sickness.
When we ... devote ourselves to the strict and unsparing performance of duty, ihen happiness comes of itself.
Joy mingled with sadness, even with grief, is the deepest human joy. It winds itself about the soul with indescribable sweetness, with a dim but unerring sense for what will some day be born of it.
The inquiry into the proper aims and limits of State agency must be of the highest importance nay, that it is perhaps more vitally momentous than any other political question.
Providence certainly does not favor just certain individuals, but the deep wisdom of its counsel, instruction and ennoblement extends to all.
Results are nothing; the energies which produce them and which again spring from them are everything.
Only what we have wrought into our character during life can we take away with us.