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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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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
Doe
Characteristic
Find
Characteristics
Time
Appear
Accomplish
Progress
Accelerated
Age
Accomplishes
Less
Shorter
Given
Retrospect

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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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Faith can be interested in results only, for a truth once recognized as such puts an end to the believer's thinking.
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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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It is usually more important how a man meets his fate than what it is.
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Happiness is so nonsynonymous with joy or pleasure that it is not infrequently sought and felt in grief and deprivation.
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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.
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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.
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The sea has been called deceitful and treacherous, but there lies in this trait only the character of a great natural power, which, to speak according to our own feelings, renews its strength, and, without reference to joy or sorrow, follows eternal laws which are imposed by a higher Power.
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Every man, however good he may be, has a yet better man dwelling in him, which is properly himself, but to whom nevertheless he is often unfaithful. It is to this interior and less mutable being that we should attach ourselves, not to be changeable, every-day man.
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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.
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However great an evil immorality may be, we must not forget that it is not without its beneficial consequences. It is only through extremes that men can arrive at the middle path of wisdom and virtue.
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Map reconciles himself to almost any event, however trying, if it happens in the ordinary course of nature. It is the extraordinary alone that he rebels against. There is a moral idea associated with this feeling for the extraordinary appears to be something like an injustice of heaven.
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.
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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.
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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.
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Real inward devotion knows no prayer but that arising from the depths of its own feelings.
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Life, in all ranks and situations, is an outward occupation, an actual and active work.
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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.
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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
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It is almost more important how a person takes his fate than what it is. And the best way is with gratitude while trying to improve it for the good of others and themselves.
Wilhelm von Humboldt