All situations in which the interrelationships between extremes are involved are the most interesting and instructive.
Wilhelm von HumboldtThe most beautiful, perhaps the only true philosophical song existing in any known tongue ....perhaps the deepest and loftiest thing the world has to show.
Wilhelm von HumboldtAll translating seems to me to be simply an attempt to accomplish an impossible task.
Wilhelm von HumboldtThe price of apparent happiness and enjoyment is the neglect of the spontaneous active energies of the acting members.
Wilhelm von HumboldtThe 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.
Wilhelm von HumboldtMan is more disposed to domination than freedom; and a structure of dominion not only gladdens the eye of the master who rears and protects it, but even its servants are uplifted by the thought that they are members of a whole, which rises high above the life and strength of single generations.
Wilhelm von Humboldt