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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

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Wilhelm von Humboldt
Age: 67 †
Born: 1767
Born: June 22
Died: 1835
Died: April 8
Anthropologist
Diplomat
Historian
Linguist
Philosopher
Politician
Teacher
Writer
Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand Freiherr von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt
Karl Wilhelm von Humboldt
Men
Middle
Arrive
Wisdom
Consequences
Forget
Extremes
Evil
Consequence
May
Morality
Without
However
Must
Virtue
Immorality
Great
Path
Beneficial

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Samskrit is the unsurpassed zenith in the whole development of languages yet known to us.
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The sea has been called deceitful and treacherous, but there lies in this trait only the character of a great natural power, which, to speak according to our own feelings, renews its strength, and, without reference to joy or sorrow, follows eternal laws which are imposed by a higher Power.
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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.
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Real inward devotion knows no prayer but that arising from the depths of its own feelings.
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Every man, however good he may be, has a yet better man dwelling in him, which is properly himself, but to whom nevertheless he is often unfaithful. It is to this interior and less mutable being that we should attach ourselves, not to be changeable, every-day man.
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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.
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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.
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The sorrow which calls for help and comfort is not the greatest, nor does it come from the depths of the heart.
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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.
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The price of apparent happiness and enjoyment is the neglect of the spontaneous active energies of the acting members.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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It is usually more important how a man meets his fate than what it is.
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All situations in which the interrelationships between extremes are involved are the most interesting and instructive.
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Even by means of our sorrows we belong to the eternal plan.
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Happiness is so nonsynonymous with joy or pleasure that it is not infrequently sought and felt in grief and deprivation.
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