Wilhelm von Humboldt Quotes

Only what we have wrought into our character during life can we take away with us.

Happiness is so nonsynonymous with joy or pleasure that it is not infrequently sought and felt in grief and deprivation.

Human nature must be something which always remains one and the same, but which may be carried out in manifold ways.

All situations in which the interrelationships between extremes are involved are the most interesting and instructive.

When we ... devote ourselves to the strict and unsparing performance of duty then happiness comes of itself.

Faith can be interested in results only, for a truth once recognized as such puts an end to the believer's thinking.

When we ... devote ourselves to the strict and unsparing performance of duty ihen happiness comes of itself.

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.

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.

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?

All growth toward perfection is but a returning to original existence.

It is almost more important how a person takes his fate than what it is.