Wilhelm von Humboldt

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

— Wilhelm von Humboldt

#nature

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

#truth #faith

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. ↗

— Wilhelm von Humboldt

#men

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

#materialism #nature

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

#reaction #equality

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

— Wilhelm von Humboldt

#nature

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

— Wilhelm von Humboldt

#extremes #education

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. ↗

— Wilhelm von Humboldt

#beneficial #consequences #evil #extremes #forget

Wherever the citizen becomes indifferent to his fellows, so will the husband be to his wife, and the father of a family toward the members of his household. ↗

— Wilhelm von Humboldt

#citizen #family #father #fellows #his

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

#convinced #depends #events #far #happiness