Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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

Image
The finest fruit earth holds up to its Maker is a finished man.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Image
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.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Image
All situations in which the interrelationships between extremes are involved are the most interesting and instructive.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Image
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.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Image
Absolutely nothing is so important for a nation's culture as its language.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Image
Only what we have wrought into our character during life can we take with us.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Image
Language is the spiritual exhalation of the nation.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Image
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
Image
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.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Image
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
Image
Whatever does not spring from a man's free choice, or is only the result of instruction and guidance, does not enter into his very being, but still remains alien to his true nature he does not perform it with truly human energies, but merely with mechanical exactness.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Image
The very variety arising from the union of numbers of individuals is the highest good which social life can confer, and this variety is undoubtedly lost in proportion to the degree of State interference.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Image
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
Image
All translating seems to me to be simply an attempt to accomplish an impossible task.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Image
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
Image
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
Image
If we glance at the most important revolutions in history, we see at once that the greatest number of these originated in the periodical revolutions of the human mind.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Image
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
Image
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
Image
If it were possible to make an accurate calculation of the evils which police regulations occasion, and of those which they prevent, the number of the former would, in all cases, exceed that of the latter.
Wilhelm von Humboldt