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
media use language
Language makes infinite use of finite media.
beauty coercion may
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.
stress men giving
I lay very little stress either upon asking or giving advice. Generally speaking, they who ask advice know what they wish to do, and remain firm to their intentions. A man may allow himself to be enlightened on various points, even upon matters of expediency and duty; but, after all, he must determine his course of action, for himself.
happiness spring anxiety
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--nay, even springs from the midst of a life of troubles and anxieties and privations.
happiness taken men
A man must seek his happiness and inward peace from objects which cannot be taken away from him.
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.
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.
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.
fate men important
It is usually more important how a man meets his fate than what it is.
sadness men mind
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 towards regions yet unknown and unopened.
garden imagination feelings
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.
duty strict performances
When we ... devote ourselves to the strict and unsparing performance of duty, ihen happiness comes of itself.