Wilhelm von Humboldt

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

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

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

Coercion may prevent many transgressions; but it robs even actions which are legal of a part of their beauty. Freedom may lead to many transgressions, but it lends even to vices a less ignoble form.

True enjoyment comes from activity of the mind and exercise of the body the two are ever united.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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