Wilhelm von Humboldt Quotes

When we ... devote ourselves to the strict and unsparing performance of duty then happiness comes of itself.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
When we ... devote ourselves to the strict and unsparing performance of duty ihen happiness comes of itself.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Only what we have wrought into our character during life can we take away with us.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
It is almost more important how a person takes his fate than what it is.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
For even if we know very little that is certain about spirit or soul, the true nature of the body, of materiality, is totally unknown and incomprehensible to us.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
If something possesses no capacity for activity whatever, it is nothing; it may be wholly penetrated, but it cannot be touched. Therefore passivity and reaction are everywhere equal.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Human nature must be something which always remains one and the same, but which may be carried out in manifold ways.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
All growth toward perfection is but a returning to original existence.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
To judge a man means nothing other 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
All situations in which the interrelationships between extremes are involved are the most interesting and instructive.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Happiness is so nonsynonymous with joy or pleasure that it is not infrequently sought and felt in grief and deprivation.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Faith can be interested in results only, for a truth once recognized as such puts an end to the believer's thinking.
Wilhelm von Humboldt