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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.

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
Everything
Nothing
Must
Thorough
Much
Attempt
Men
Bring
World
Impossible
Moral
Others

More quotes by Wilhelm von Humboldt

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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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To inquire and to create these are the grand centres around which all human pursuits revolve, or at least to these objects do they all more or less directly refer.
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Possession, it is true, crowns exertion with rest but it is only in the illusions of fancy that it has power to charm us.
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The State is not in itself an end, but is only a means towards human development.
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Natural objects themselves, even when they make no claim to beauty, excite the feelings, and occupy the imagination. Nature pleases, attracts, delights, merely because it is nature. We recognize in it an Infinite Power.
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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.
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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.
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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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Providence certainly does not favor just certain individuals, but the deep wisdom of its counsel, instruction and ennoblement extends to all.
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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.
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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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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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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
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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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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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Language makes infinite use of finite media.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
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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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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
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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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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