"Whatever relates to extent and quantity may be represented by geometrical figures. Statistical projections which speak to the senses without fatiguing the mind, possess the advantage of fixing the attention on a great number of important facts." (Alexander von Humboldt, 1811)
"Regardless of communication between man and man, speech is a necessary condition for the thinking of the individual in solitary seclusion. In appearance, however, language develops only socially, and man understands himself only once he has tested the intelligibility of his words by trial upon others." (Wilhelm von Humboldt, "On Language", 1836)
"At the limits of circumscribed knowledge, as from some lofty island shore, the eye delights to penetrate to distant regions." (Alexander von Humboldt, "Cosmos: A Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe", 1845)
"Conclusions based upon analogies may fill up a portion of the vast chasm which separates the certain results of a mathematical natural philosophy from conjectures verging on the extreme, and therefore obscure and barren confines of all scientific development of mind." (Alexander von Humboldt, "Cosmos: A Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe", 1845)
"Impressions change with the varying movements of the mind, and we are led by a happy illusion to believe that we receive from the external world that with which we have ourselves invested it." (Alexander von Humboldt, "Cosmos: A Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe", 1845)
"Nature, in the manifold signification of the word - whether considered as the universality of all that is and ever will be - as the inner moving force of all phenomena, or as their mysterious prototype - reveals itself to the simple mind and feelings of man as something earthly, and closely allied to himself."(Alexander von Humboldt, "Cosmos: A Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe", 1845)
"The mere accumulation of unconnected observations of details, devoid of generalization of ideas, may doubtlessly have tended to create and foster the deeply rooted prejudice, that the study of the exact sciences must necessarily chill the feelings, and diminish the nobler enjoyments attendant upon a contemplation of nature." (Alexander von Humboldt, "Views of Nature: Or Contemplation of the Sublime Phenomena of Creation", 1850)
"The philosophical study of nature rises above the requirements of mere delineation, and does not consist in the sterile accumulation of isolated facts. The active and inquiring spirit of man may therefore be occasionally permitted to escape from the present into the domain of the past, to conjecture that which cannot yet be clearly determined, and thus to revel amid the ancient and ever-recurring myths of geology." (Alexander von Humboldt, "Views of Nature: Or Contemplation of the Sublime Phenomena of Creation", 1850)
"In order to depict nature in its exalted sublimity, we must not dwell exclusively on its external manifestations, but we must trace its image, reflected in the mind of man, at one time filling the dreamy land of physical myths with forms of grace and beauty, and at another developing the noble germ of artistic creations." (Alexander von Humboldt, "Cosmos: A Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe" Vol. 2, 1869)
"Nature considered rationally, that is to say, submitted to the process of thought, is a unity in diversity of phenomena; a harmony, blending together all created things, however dissimilar in form and attributes; one great whole animated by the breath of life." (Alexander von Humboldt)
"The most dangerous worldview is the worldview of those who have not viewed the world." (Alexander von Humboldt [attributed to])
"With the simplest statements of scientific facts there must ever mingle a certain eloquence. Nature herself is sublimely eloquent. The stars as they sparkle in the firmament fill us with delight and ecstasy, and yet they all move in orbits marked out with mathematical precision." (Alexander von Humboldt)
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