Quote

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

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
Exact
Traced
Necessary
Observe
Prevails
Habit
Reasoning
Comparing
Philosophy
Habits
Combining
Education
Observation
Deficiency
School
Compare
Cultivated
Power
Schools
Obtained
Fallacious
May
Behold
Regretted
Much
False

More quotes by Wilhelm von Humboldt

Image
Wherever the citizen becomes indifferent to his fellows, so will the husband be to his wife, and the father of a family toward the members of his household.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Image
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
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
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
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.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Image
Real inward devotion knows no prayer but that arising from the depths of its own feelings.
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
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
Image
Results are nothing the energies which produce them and which again spring from them are everything.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Image
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.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Image
Fancy brings us as many vain hopes as idle fears.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Image
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.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Image
Providence certainly does not favor just certain individuals, but the deep wisdom of its counsel, instruction and ennoblement extends to all.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Image
When we ... devote ourselves to the strict and unsparing performance of duty, ihen happiness comes of itself.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Image
Results are nothing the energies which produce them and which again spring from them are everything.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Image
All translating seems to me to be simply an attempt to accomplish an impossible task.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Image
All political arrangements, in that they have to bring a variety of widely-discordant interests into unity and harmony, necessarily occasion manifold collisions. From these collisions spring misproportions between men's desires and their powers and from these, transgressions. The more active the State is, the greater is the number of these.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Image
Happiness is so nonsynonymous with joy or pleasure that it is not infrequently sought and felt in grief and deprivation.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Image
How a person masters his or her fate is more important than what that fate is.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Image
It is usually more important how a man meets his fate than what it is.
Wilhelm von Humboldt