It is continued temperance which sustains the body for the longest period of time, and which most surely preserves it free from sickness.
—Wilhelm von Humboldt
Work is as much a necessity to man as eating and sleeping.—Even those who do nothing that can be called work still imagine they are doing something.—The world has not a man who is an idler in his own eyes.
—Wilhelm von Humboldt
Topics: Work
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.
—Wilhelm von Humboldt
Topics: Power
To behold is not necessarily to observe, and the power of comparing and combining is only to be obtained by education. It is much to be regretted that habits of exact observation are not cultivated in our schools; to this deficiency may be traced much of the fallacious reasoning and the false philosophy which prevails.
—Wilhelm von Humboldt
Topics: Observation
It is almost more important how a person takes his fate than what it is.
—Wilhelm von Humboldt
Topics: Acceptance
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.
—Wilhelm von Humboldt
Topics: Happiness, Life, Attitude
We cannot assume the injustice of any actions which only create offense, and especially as regards religion and morals. He who utters or does anything to wound the conscience and moral sense of others, may indeed act immorally; but, so long as he is not guilty of being importunate, he violates no right.
—Wilhelm von Humboldt
If the mind loves solitude, it has thereby acquired a loftier character, and it becomes still more noble when the taste is indulged in.
—Wilhelm von Humboldt
Topics: Solitude
In the moral world there is nothing impossible if we can bring a thorough will to do it. Man can do everything with himself, but he must not attempt to do too much with others.
—Wilhelm von Humboldt
Topics: Will
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.
—Wilhelm von Humboldt
Topics: Apathy, Indifference
Freedom is but the possibility of a various and indefinite activity; while government, or the exercise of dominion, is a single, yet real activity. The longing for freedom, therefore, is at first only too frequently suggested by the deep-felt consciousness of its absence.
—Wilhelm von Humboldt
Topics: Freedom
If it were not somewhat fanciful to suppose that every human excellence is presented, as it were, in one kind of being, we might believe that the whole treasure of morality and order is enshrined in the female character.
—Wilhelm von Humboldt
Topics: Women
The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.
—Wilhelm von Humboldt
Topics: Government
The sea has been called deceitful and treacherous, but there lies in this trait only the character of a great natural power, which renews its strength, and, without reference to joy or sorrow, follows eternal laws which are imposed by a higher power.
—Wilhelm von Humboldt
It is worthy of special remark that when we are not too anxious about happiness and unhappiness, but devote ourselves to the strict and unsparing performance of duty, then happiness comes of itself.
—Wilhelm von Humboldt
Topics: Happiness, Duty
Providence certainly does not favor just certain individuals, but the deep wisdom of its counsel, instruction and ennoblement extends to all.
—Wilhelm von Humboldt
Topics: God
If it were possible to make an accurate calculation of the evils which police regulations occasion, and of those which they prevent, the number of the former would, in all cases, exceed that of the latter.
—Wilhelm von Humboldt
Topics: Control, Police
Life, in all ranks and situations, is an outward occupation, an actual and active work.
—Wilhelm von Humboldt
Topics: Action, Life
Man is more disposed to domination than freedom; and a structure of dominion not only gladdens the eye of the master who rears and protects it, but even its servants are uplifted by the thought that they are members of a whole, which rises high above the life and strength of single generations.
—Wilhelm von Humboldt
Topics: Tyranny
The sorrow which calls for help and comfort is not the greatest, nor does it come from the depths of the heart.
—Wilhelm von Humboldt
Topics: Sorrow
How a person masters his fate is more important than what his fate is.
—Wilhelm von Humboldt
Topics: Fate, Success & Failure, Success
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.
—Wilhelm von Humboldt
Topics: Old Age
Government, religion, property, books, are nothing but the scaffolding to build men. Earth holds up to her master no fruit like the finished man.
—Wilhelm von Humboldt
Topics: Man
The sensual and spiritual are linked together by a mysterious bond, sensed by our emotions, though hidden from our eyes. To this double nature of the visible and invisible world—to the profound longing for the latter, coupled with the feeling of the sweet necessity for the former, we owe all sound and logical systems of philosophy, truly based on the immutable principles of our nature, just as from the same source arise the most senseless enthusiasms.
—Wilhelm von Humboldt
Topics: Spirit, Spirituality
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.
—Wilhelm von Humboldt
Topics: War
Natural objects themselves, even when they make no claim to beauty, excite the feelings, and occupy the imagination. Nature pleases, attracts, delights, merely because it is nature. We recognize in it an Infinite Power.
—Wilhelm von Humboldt
Topics: Nature
However great an evil immorality may be, we must not forget that it is not without its beneficial consequences. It is only through extremes that men can arrive at the middle path of wisdom and virtue.
—Wilhelm von Humboldt
Topics: Morality, Morals
Besides the pleasure derived from acquired knowledge, there lurks in the mind of man, and tinged with a shade of sadness, an unsatisfactory longing for something beyond the present-a striving toward regions yet unknown and unopened.
—Wilhelm von Humboldt
Topics: Desires
True enjoyment comes from activity of the mind and exercise of the body; the two are ever united.
—Wilhelm von Humboldt
Topics: Enjoyment
Possession, it is true, crowns exertion with rest; but it is only in the illusions of fancy that it has power to charm us.
—Wilhelm von Humboldt
Topics: Possessions, Property
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Immanuel Kant Prussian German Philosopher
- Arthur Schopenhauer German Philosopher
- Johann Gottfried Herder German Critic, Poet
- Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi German Philosopher
- Friedrich Nietzsche German Philosopher, Scholar
- Immanuel Hermann Fichte German Philosopher
- Martin Heidegger German Existential Philosopher
- Moses Mendelssohn German Jewish Philosopher
- Werner Heisenberg German Theoretical Physicist
- Friedrich Schiller German Poet
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