Wilhelm von Humboldt - Collected Quotes

"All situations in which the interrelationships between extremes are involved are the most interesting and instructive." (Wilhelm von Humboldt, "The Limits of State Action", 1792)

"It is the principle of necessity towards which, as to their ultimate centre, all the ideas advanced in this essay immediately converge. In abstract theory the limits of this necessity are determined solely by considerations of man’s proper nature as a human being; but in the application we have to regard, in addition, the individuality of man as he actually exists. This prinsciple of necessity should, I think, prescribe the grand fundamental rule to which every effort to act on human beings and their manifold relations should be invariably conformed. For it is the only thing which conducts to certain and unquestionable results. The consideration of the useful, which might be opposed to it, does not admit of any true and unswerving decision." (Wilhelm von Humboldt, "The Limits of State Action", 1792)

"To inquire and to create; - these are the grand centres around which all human pursuits revolve, or at least to these objects do they all more or less directly refer." (Wilhelm von Humboldt, "The Limits of State Action", 1792)

"The diversity of languages is not a diversity of signs and sounds but a diversity of views of the world." (Wilhelm von Humboldt, 1820)

"Results are nothing; the energies which produce them and which again spring from them are everything." (Wilhelm von Humboldt,  "On Language", 1836)

"As soon as one stops searching for knowledge, or if one imagines that it need not be creatively sought in the depths of the human spirit but can be assembled extensively by collecting and classifying facts, everything is irrevocably and forever lost." (Wilhelm von Humboldt)

"[...] languages are not really means for representing already known truths, but are rather instruments for discovering previously unrecognised ones." (Wilhelm von Humboldt)

"The mutual interdependence of thought and word illuminates clearly the truth that languages are not really means for representing already known truths, but are rather instruments for discovering previously unrecognised ones. The differences between languages are not those of sounds and signs but those of differing  worldviews […] objective truth always rises from the entire energy of subjective individuality." (Wilhelm von Humboldt)

"True enjoyment comes from activity of the mind and exercise of the body; the two are ever united." (Wilhelm von Humboldt)