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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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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
Nothing
Concepts
Giving
Judging
Mean
Humanity
Men
Asks
Representative
Means
Representatives
Form
Concept
Doe
Content
Give
Judge

More quotes by Wilhelm von Humboldt

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All translating seems to me to be simply an attempt to accomplish an impossible task.
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Language is the spiritual exhalation of the nation.
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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.
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The inquiry into the proper aims and limits of State agency must be of the highest importance nay, that it is perhaps more vitally momentous than any other political question.
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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.
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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.
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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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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.
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Man is naturally more disposed to beneficent than selfish actions. This we learn even from the history of savages. The domestic virtues have something in them so inviting and genial, and the public virtues of the citizen something so grand and inspiring, that even he who is barely uncorrupted, is seldom able to resist their charm.
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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.
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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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If the mind loves solitude, it has thereby acquired a loftier character, and it becomes still more noble when the taste is indulged in.
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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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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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.
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It is usually more important how a man meets his fate than what it is.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
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In the moral world there is nothing impossible if we can bring a thorough will to it. Man can do everything with himself, but he must not attempt to do too much with others.
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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.
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A man must seek his happiness and inward peace from objects which cannot be taken away from him.
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The legislator should keep two things constantly before his eyes: 1. The pure theory developed to its minutest details 2. The particular condition of actual things which he designs to reform.
Wilhelm von Humboldt