Wilhelm von Humboldt

“ Form springs from the union of substance. The richer and more various the substance that is united, the more sublime is the resulting form. A child of the gods is the offspring only of immortal parents: and as the blossom swells and ripens into fruit, and from the tiny germ imbedded in its soft pulp the new stalk shoots forth, laden with newly-clustering buds; so does the Form become in turn the substance of a still more exquisite Form. The intensity of power, moreover, increases in proportion to the greater variety and delicacy of the substance ”

“ The incapacity for freedom can only arise from a want of moral and intellectual power; to elevate this power is the only way to counteract this want; but to do this presupposes the exercise of that power, and this exercise presupposes the freedom which awakens spontaneous activity. Only it is clear we cannot call it giving freedom, when fetters are unloosed which are not felt as such by him who wears them. But of no man on earth — however neglected by nature, and however degraded by circumstances—is this true of all the bonds which oppress and enthral him. ”

“ I call the citizens of a State secure, when, living together in the full enjoyment of their due rights of person and property, they are out of the reach of any external disturbance from the encroachments of others; and hence I would call security (if the expression does not seem too brief for distinctness) the assurance of legal freedom. Now this security is not of necessity disturbed by all such actions as impede a man in the free exercise of his powers, and in the full enjoyment of all that belongs to him, but only by those which do this unrightfully. ”

“ While the State constitution, by the force of law, or custom, or its own preponderating power, imparts a definite relation to the citizens, there is still another which is wholly distinct from this—chosen of their own free-will, infinitely various, and in its nature ever-changing. And it is strictly this last, — the mutual freedom of activity among all the members of the nation,—which secures all those benefits for which men longed when they formed themselves into a society. ”

“ The necessity for some purer satisfaction, far removed in its objects from all preconceived design and without conception, points out to man his descent from the invisible; and the feeling of his utter inadequateness to the surpassing fulness of the object, blends together, in a union at once the most human and divine, infinite greatness with the most devoted humility. Were it not for his feeling for the beautiful, man would cease to love things for their own sake ”

“ The fact of their receiving everything immediately from the hand of benignant Nature,—the ever-deepening consciousness that, although the hand of man must first scatter the seed, it is not from human agency that the rich repletion of the harvest is derived,—the constant dependence on favourable and unfavourable skies, awaken presentiments of the existence of beings of a higher order, now instinct with dire foreboding, and now full of the liveliest joy—in the rapid alternations of fear and hope—and lead the soul to prayer and grateful praise. ”

“ And thus it is true, in general, that the exercise of dominion has something in it more immediately agreeable to human nature than the mere reposeful sense of freedom; or, at least, that the solicitude to secure freedom is a dearer satisfaction than that which is afforded by its actual possession. Freedom is but the possibility of a various and indefinite activity; while government, or the exercise of dominion, is a single, but yet real activity. The ardent desire for freedom, therefore, is at first only too frequently suggested by the deep-felt consciousness of its absence. ”

“ He is not yet penetrated with the loftiest idea of all morality, so long as he can be content to regard himself or others as distinct and isolated—so long as all spiritual existences seem not to him merged and united in the sum of perfection which lies diffused around him. Nay, his union with other beings of kindred nature with himself is perhaps only the more intimate, and his sympathy in their fates and fortunes only the more keen and constant, in proportion as their destiny and his own seem to him to be entirely dependent on him and them. ”

“ In war, moreover, every one is inspired with the feeling of rights to be defended and wrongs to be avenged; and while man, in a state of nature, esteems it a far higher object to redeem his honour than to accumulate the means of subsistence, it is a choice which even the most civilized would not feel disposed to deny to him.
It will not be supposed for a moment that the death of a fallen warrior has something in it more beautiful to my eyes than the death of the fearless Pliny, or, to instance devotion somewhat too little honoured, the death of Robert and Pilatre du Rozier. ”

“ Now, whatever man receives externally, is only as the grain of seed. It is his own active energy alone that can convert the germ of the fairest growth, into a full and precious blessing for himself. It leads to beneficial issues only when it is full of vital power and essentially individual. The highest ideal, therefore, of the co-existence of human beings, seems to me to consist in a union in which each strives to develope himself from his own inmost nature, and for his own sake. ”

“ Obstacles serve to stimulate energy, and discipline forethought; none uselessly obstruct, save those which arise from human injustice; but that obstinacy is not such an impediment which may indeed be bent by the force of laws in single cases, but can only be removed by the blessed influences of freedom. These reasons, of which a brief summary is all that can be given here, seem yet sufficient to make us yield to iron necessity alone; and the State should content itself with securing to men their natural right to sacrifice the freedom and property of another in order to avert their own ruin. ”

“ While the former strives earnestly to remove the external barriers which oppose his development, woman's careful hand prescribes that inner restraint within whose limits alone the fulness of power can refine itself to perfect issues; and she defines the circle with more delicate precision, in that her every sense is more faithful to her simple behests, spares her that laborious subtilizing which so often tends to enmesh and obscure the truth, and enables her to see more clearly through the intricate confusion of human relations, and fathom at once the innermost springs of human being. ”

“ But, however natural in itself, and however noble in its origin, this desire has not unfrequently led to hurtful consequences,—nay, often to greater evils than the colder indifference, or (as from the very opposite cause the same effect may follow) the glowing enthusiasm, which, comparatively heedless of reality, delights only in the pure beauty of ideas. For no sooner has anything that is true struck deep root in human nature (even though it should be but in the heart of one man) , than slowly and noiselessly it spreads its blessed influence over the surface of actual life ”

“ Now, when the moral law obliges us to regard every man as an end to himself, it becomes blended with that feeling for the beautiful which loves to animate the merest clay, that even in it, it may rejoice in an individual existence, and which receives and enfolds man all the more completely and lovingly in that it is independent of conception, and is not therefore limited to the few characteristics, which, though separate and single, are yet all that conception can embrace. ”

“ There is nothing, moreover, which necessitates such stringent coercion and such unconditional obedience as man's spirit of enterprise against his fellow-men, whether we regard the expulsion of foreign enemies, or the preservation of security within the State itself. Now, without security, it is impossible for man either to develope his powers, or to enjoy the fruits of his exertion; for, without security, there can be no freedom. But it will be seen at once that this is a condition which man is wholly unable to realize by his own individual efforts ”