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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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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
Instructive
Situations
Extremes
Involved
Situation
Interesting
Interrelationships

More quotes by Wilhelm von Humboldt

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If we reason that we want happiness for others, not for ourselves, then we ought justly to be suspected of failing to recognize human nature for what it is and of wishing to turn men into machines.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
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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.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
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Life, in all ranks and situations, is an outward occupation, an actual and active work.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
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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
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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
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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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When we ... devote ourselves to the strict and unsparing performance of duty, ihen happiness comes of itself.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
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The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
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All translating seems to me to be simply an attempt to accomplish an impossible task.
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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No matter how good or great a man may be, there is yet a better and a greater man within him.
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 state should avoid all solicitude for the positive welfare of its citizens, and not proceed a step further than is necessary for their mutual security and their protection against foreign enemies. It should impose restrictions on freedom for no other purpose.
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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A man must seek his happiness and inward peace from objects which cannot be taken away from him.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
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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.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
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Happiness is so nonsynonymous with joy or pleasure that it is not infrequently sought and felt in grief and deprivation.
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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Among men who are really free, every form of industry becomes more rapidly improved - all the arts flourish more gracefully - all the sciences extend their range.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
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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