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Prayer Is Intended To Increase The Devotion Of The Individual, But If The Individual Himself Prays He Requires No Formula; He Pours Himself Forth Much More Naturally In Self-chosen And Connected Thoughts Before God, And Scarcely Requires Words At All. Real Inward Devotion Knows No Prayer But That Arising From The Depths Of Its Own Feelings.

-Wilhelm Von Humboldt

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Prayer Is Intended To

Wilhelm Von Humboldt

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Prayer Is Intended To Increase The Devotion Of The Individual, But If The Individual Himself Prays He Requires No Formula; He Pours Himself Forth Much More Naturally In Self-chosen And Connected Thoughts Before God, And Scarcely Requires Words At All. Real Inward Devotion Knows No Prayer But That Arising From The Depths Of Its Own Feelings.

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When We ... Devote Ourselves To The Strict And Unsparing Performance Of Duty, Ihen Happiness Comes Of Itself.

We Cannot Assume The Injustice Of Any Actions Which Only Create Offense, And Especially As Regards Religion And Morals. He Who Utters Or Does Anything To Wound The Conscience And Moral Sense Of Others, May Indeed Act Immorally; But, So Long As He Is Not Guilty Of Being Importunate, He Violates No Right.

I Am More And More Convinced That Our Happiness Or Our Unhappiness Depends Far More On The Way We Meet The Events Of Life Than On The Nature Of Those Events Themselves.

If We Reason That We Want Happiness For Others, Not For Ourselves, Then We Ought Justly To Be Suspected Of Failing To Recognize Human Nature For What It Is And Of Wishing To Turn Men Into Machines.

Even Sleep Is Characteristic. How Beautiful Are Children In Their Lovely Innocence! How Angel-like Their Blooming Features! And How Painful And Anxious Is The Sleep Of The Guilty!

Man Is Naturally More Disposed To Beneficent Than Selfish Actions. This We Learn Even From The History Of Savages. The Domestic Virtues Have Something In Them So Inviting And Genial, And The Public Virtues Of The Citizen Something So Grand And Inspiring, That Even He Who Is Barely Uncorrupted, Is Seldom Able To Resist Their Charm.

The State Should Avoid All Solicitude For The Positive Welfare Of Its Citizens, And Not Proceed A Step Further Than Is Necessary For Their Mutual Security And Their Protection Against Foreign Enemies. It Should Impose Restrictions On Freedom For No Other Purpose.

The Most Beautiful, Perhaps The Only True Philosophical Song Existing In Any Known Tongue ....perhaps The Deepest And Loftiest Thing The World Has To Show.

Governmental Regulations All Carry Coercion To Some Degree, And Even Where They Don't, They Habituate Man To Expect Teaching, Guidance And Help Outside Himself, Instead Of Formulating His Own.

Man Is More Disposed To Domination Than Freedom; And A Structure Of Dominion Not Only Gladdens The Eye Of The Master Who Rears And Protects It, But Even Its Servants Are Uplifted By The Thought That They Are Members Of A Whole, Which Rises High Above The Life And Strength Of Single Generations.

In The Moral World There Is Nothing Impossible If We Can Bring A Thorough Will To It. Man Can Do Everything With Himself, But He Must Not Attempt To Do Too Much With Others.

Reason Cannot Desire For Man Any Condition Other Than That In Which Not Only Every Individual Enjoys The Most Absolute, Unbounded Freedom To Develop Himself Out Of Himself, In True Individuality, But In Which Physical Nature, As Well, Need Receive No Other Shaping By Human Hands Than That Which Is Given To Her Voluntarily By Each Individual, According To The Measure Of His Wants And His Inclinations, Restricted Only By The Limits Of His Energy And His Rights.

All Situations In Which The Interrelationships Between Extremes Are Involved Are The Most Interesting And Instructive.

It Is Resignation And Contentment That Are Best Calculated To Lead Us Safely Through Life. Whoever Has Not Sufficient Power To Endure Privations, And Even Suffering, Can Never Feel That He Is Armor Proof Against Painful Emotions,--nay, He Must Attribute To Himself, Or At Least To The Morbid Sensitiveness Of His Nature, Every Disagreeable Feeling He May Suffer.

True Resignation, Which Always Brings With It The Confidence That Unchangeable Goodness Will Make Even The Disappointment Of Our Hopes, And The Contradictions Of Life, Conducive To Some Benefit, Casts A Grave But Tranquil Light Over The Prospect Of Even A Toilsome And Troubled Life.

The Inquiry Into The Proper Aims And Limits Of State Agency Must Be Of The Highest Importance Nay, That It Is Perhaps More Vitally Momentous Than Any Other Political Question.

However Benevolent May Be The Intentions Of Providence, They Do Not Always Advance The Happiness Of The Individual. Providence Has Always Higher Ends In View, And Works In A Pre-eminent Degree On The Inner Feelings And Disposition.

In Every Remodelling Of The Present, The Existing Condition Of Things Must Be Supplanted By A New One. Now Every Variety Of Circumstances In Which Men Find Themselves, Every Object Which Surrounds Them, Communicates A Definite Form And Impress To Their Internal Nature. This Form Is Not Such That It Can Change And Adapt Itself To Any Other A Man May Choose To Receive; And The End Is Foiled, While The Power Is Destroyed, When We Attempt To Impose Upon That Which Is Already Stamped In The Soul A Form Which Disagrees With It.

Fancy Brings Us As Many Vain Hopes As Idle Fears.

Map Reconciles Himself To Almost Any Event, However Trying, If It Happens In The Ordinary Course Of Nature. It Is The Extraordinary Alone That He Rebels Against. There Is A Moral Idea Associated With This Feeling; For The Extraordinary Appears To Be Something Like An Injustice Of Heaven.

Results Are Nothing; The Energies Which Produce Them And Which Again Spring From Them Are Everything.

Language Makes Infinite Use Of Finite Media.

The Things Of The World Are Ever Rising And Falling, And In Perpetual Change; And This Change Must Be According To The Will Of God, As He Has Bestowed Upon Man Neither The Wisdom Nor The Power To Enable Him To Check It. The Great Lesson In These Things Is, That Man Must Strengthen Himself Doubly At Such Times To Fulfill His Duty And To Do What Is Right, And Must Seek His Happiness And Inward Peace From Objects Which Cannot Be Taken Away From Him.

The Price Of Apparent Happiness And Enjoyment Is The Neglect Of The Spontaneous Active Energies Of The Acting Members.

War Seems To Be One Of The Most Salutary Phenomena For The Culture Of Human Nature; And It Is Not Without Regret That I See It Disappearing More And More From The Scene.

To Behold, Is Not Necessary To Observe, And The Power Of Comparing And Combining Is Only To Be Obtained By Education. It Is Much To Be Regretted That Habits Of Exact Observation Are Not Cultivated In Our Schools; To This Deficiency May Be Traced Much Of The Fallacious Reasoning, The False Philosophy Which Prevails.

Language Is The Spiritual Exhalation Of The Nation.

It Is Continued Temperance Which Sustains The Body For The Longest Period Of Time, And Which Most Surely Preserves It Free From Sickness.

The Very Variety Arising From The Union Of Numbers Of Individuals Is The Highest Good Which Social Life Can Confer, And This Variety Is Undoubtedly Lost In Proportion To The Degree Of State Interference.

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Besides The Pleasure Derived From Acquired Knowledge, There Lurks In The Mind Of Man, And Tinged With A Shade Of Sadness, An Unsatisfactory Longing For Something Beyond The Present, A Striving Towards Regions Yet Unknown And Unopened.

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When We Are Not Too Anxious About Happiness And Unhappiness, But Devote Ourselves To The Strict And Unsparing Performance Of Duty, Then Happiness Comes Of Itself - Nay, Even Springs From The Midst Of A Life Of Troubles And Anxieties And Privations.

All Political Arrangements, In That They Have To Bring A Variety Of Widely-discordant Interests Into Unity And Harmony, Necessarily Occasion Manifold Collisions. From These Collisions Spring Misproportions Between Men's Desires And Their Powers; And From These, Transgressions. The More Active The State Is, The Greater Is The Number Of These.

To Judge A Man Means Nothing More 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?

How A Person Masters His Or Her Fate Is More Important Than What That Fate Is.

Freedom Is But The Possibility Of A Various And Indefinite Activity; While Government, Or The Exercise Of Dominion, Is A Single, Yet Real Activity. The Longing For Freedom, Therefore, Is At First Only Too Frequently Suggested By The Deep-felt Consciousness Of Its Absence.

Death Is But A Word To Us. One's Own Experience Alone Can Teach Us The Real Meaning Of The Word. The Sight Of The Dying Does Little. What One Sees Of Them Is Merely What Precedes Death: Dull Unconsciousness Is All We See. Whether This Be So,--how And When The Spirit Wakes To Life Again,--this Is What All Wish To Know, And What Never Can Be Known Until It Is Experienced.

A Man Must Seek His Happiness And Inward Peace From Objects Which Cannot Be Taken Away From Him.

The Sea Has Been Called Deceitful And Treacherous, But There Lies In This Trait Only The Character Of A Great Natural Power, Which, To Speak According To Our Own Feelings, Renews Its Strength, And, Without Reference To Joy Or Sorrow, Follows Eternal Laws Which Are Imposed By A Higher Power.

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.

It Is Almost More Important How A Person Takes His Fate Than What It Is. And The Best Way Is With Gratitude While Trying To Improve It For The Good Of Others And Themselves.

If The Mind Loves Solitude, It Has Thereby Acquired A Loftier Character, And It Becomes Still More Noble When The Taste Is Indulged In.

If We Glance At The Most Important Revolutions In History, We See At Once That The Greatest Number Of These Originated In The Periodical Revolutions Of The Human Mind.

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.

No Matter How Good Or Great A Man May Be, There Is Yet A Better And A Greater Man Within Him.

All Translating Seems To Me To Be Simply An Attempt To Accomplish An Impossible Task.

Trees Have About Them Something Beautiful And Attractive Even To The Fancy, Since They Cannot Change Their Places, Are Witnesses Of All The Changes That Take Place Around Them; And As Some Reach A Great Age, They Become, As It Were, Historical Monuments, And Like Ourselves They Have A Life, Growing And Passing Away, --not Being Inanimate And Unvarying Like The Fields And Rivers. One Sees Them Passing Through Various Stages, And At Last Step By Step Approaching Death, Which Makes Them Look Still More Like Ourselves.

Prayer Is Intended To Increase The Devotion Of The Individual, But If The Individual Himself Prays He Requires No Formula; He Pours Himself Forth Much More Naturally In Self-chosen And Connected Thoughts Before God, And Scarcely Requires Words At All. Real Inward Devotion Knows No Prayer But That Arising From The Depths Of Its Own Feelings.

Wherever The Citizen Becomes Indifferent To His Fellows, So Will The Husband Be To His Wife, And The Father Of A Family Toward The Members Of His Household.

Natural Objects Themselves, Even When They Make No Claim To Beauty, Excite The Feelings, And Occupy The Imagination. Nature Pleases, Attracts, Delights, Merely Because It Is Nature. We Recognize In It An Infinite Power.

Every Man, However Good He May Be, Has A Yet Better Man Dwelling In Him, Which Is Properly Himself, But To Whom Nevertheless He Is Often Unfaithful. It Is To This Interior And Less Mutable Being That We Should Attach Ourselves, Not To Be Changeable, Every-day Man.

The Legislator Should Keep Two Things Constantly Before His Eyes: 1. The Pure Theory Developed To Its Minutest Details; 2. The Particular Condition Of Actual Things Which He Designs To Reform.

Real Inward Devotion Knows No Prayer But That Arising From The Depths Of Its Own Feelings.

Whatever Does Not Spring From A Man's Free Choice, Or Is Only The Result Of Instruction And Guidance, Does Not Enter Into His Very Being, But Still Remains Alien To His True Nature; He Does Not Perform It With Truly Human Energies, But Merely With Mechanical Exactness.

Work Is As Much A Necessity To Man As Eating And Sleeping. Even Those Who Do Nothing That Can Be Called Work Still Imagine They Are Doing Something. The World Has Not A Man Who Is An Idler In His Own Eyes.

Faith Can Be Interested In Results Only, For A Truth Once Recognized As Such Puts An End To The Believer's Thinking.

Only What We Have Wrought Into Our Character During Life Can We Take With Us.

The Mere Reality Of Life Would Be Inconceivably Poor Without The Charm Of Fancy, Which Brings In Its Bosom, No Doubt, As Many Vain Fears As Idle Hopes, But Lends Much Oftener To The Illusions It Calls Up A Gay Flattering Hue Than One Which Inspires Terror.

Samskrit Is The Unsurpassed Zenith In The Whole Development Of Languages Yet Known To Us.

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