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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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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
Still
Choices
Enter
Exactness
Human
Whatever
Merely
Mechanical
Humans
Free
Result
Energies
Men
Energy
Remains
Alien
True
Spring
Instruction
Nature
Choice
Aliens
Stills
Truly
Guidance
Doe
Results
Perform

More quotes by 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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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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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.
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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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However benevolent may be the intentions of Providence, they do not always advance the happiness of the individual. Providence has always higher ends in view, and works in a pre-eminent degree on the inner feelings and disposition.
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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 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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How a person masters his or her fate is more important than what that fate is.
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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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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.
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Only what we have wrought into our character during life can we take with us.
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No matter how good or great a man may be, there is yet a better and a greater man within him.
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Absolutely nothing is so important for a nation's culture as its language.
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Samskrit is the unsurpassed zenith in the whole development of languages yet known to us.
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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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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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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.
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The State is not in itself an end, but is only a means towards human development.
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The finest fruit earth holds up to its Maker is a finished man.
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Fancy brings us as many vain hopes as idle fears.
Wilhelm von Humboldt