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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.

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
World
Perhaps
Known
Show
Song
Loftiest
Shows
Existing
True
Deepest
Beautiful
Philosophical
Thing
Tongue

More quotes by Wilhelm von Humboldt

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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.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
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Faith can be interested in results only, for a truth once recognized as such puts an end to the believer's thinking.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
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Samskrit is the unsurpassed zenith in the whole development of languages yet known to us.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
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Results are nothing the energies which produce them and which again spring from them are everything.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
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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
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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.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
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All situations in which the interrelationships between extremes are involved are the most interesting and instructive.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
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Language makes infinite use of finite media.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
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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
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The State is not in itself an end, but is only a means towards human development.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
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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?
Wilhelm von Humboldt
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Prayer is intended to increase the devotion of the individual, but if the individual himself prays he requires no formula he pours himself forth much more naturally in self-chosen and connected thoughts before God, and scarcely requires words at all. Real inward devotion knows no prayer but that arising from the depths of its own feelings.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
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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
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Language is the spiritual exhalation of the nation.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
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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
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The mere reality of life would be inconceivably poor without the charm of fancy, which brings in its bosom, no doubt, as many vain fears as idle hopes, but lends much oftener to the illusions it calls up a gay flattering hue than one which inspires terror.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
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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
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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.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
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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
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The price of apparent happiness and enjoyment is the neglect of the spontaneous active energies of the acting members.
Wilhelm von Humboldt