Wilhelm von Humboldt
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldtwas a Prussian philosopher, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the Humboldt University of Berlin, which was named after him in 1949...
NationalityRussian
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth22 June 1767
CountryRussian Federation
government unnecessary
The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.
teaching men degrees
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.
progress age doe
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.
gratitude fate important
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.
power crowns fancy
Possession, it is true, crowns exertion with rest; but it is only in the illusions of fancy that it has power to charm us.
philosophy school may
To behold, is not necessary 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, the false philosophy which prevails.
beautiful children sleep
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!
selfish men citizens
Man is naturally more disposed to beneficent than selfish actions. This we learn even from the history of savages. The domestic virtues have something in them so inviting and genial, and the public virtues of the citizen something so grand and inspiring, that even he who is barely uncorrupted, is seldom able to resist their charm.
spring men numbers
All political arrangements, in that they have to bring a variety of widely-discordant interests into unity and harmony, necessarily occasion manifold collisions. From these collisions spring misproportions between men's desires and their powers; and from these, transgressions. The more active the State is, the greater is the number of these.
prayer real feelings
Real inward devotion knows no prayer but that arising from the depths of its own feelings.
ideas heaven feelings
Map reconciles himself to almost any event, however trying, if it happens in the ordinary course of nature. It is the extraordinary alone that he rebels against. There is a moral idea associated with this feeling; for the extraordinary appears to be something like an injustice of heaven.
agency political inquiry
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.
interesting situation extremes
All situations in which the interrelationships between extremes are involved are the most interesting and instructive.
spring energy results
Results are nothing; the energies which produce them and which again spring from them are everything.