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

— Wilhelm von Humboldt

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

— Wilhelm von Humboldt

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.

— Wilhelm von Humboldt

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

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

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

— Wilhelm von Humboldt

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

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

— Wilhelm von Humboldt

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

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

— Wilhelm von Humboldt