22 Quotes by Alexander von Humboldt

What we glean from travellers' vivid descriptions has a special charm; whatever is far off and suggestive excites our imagination; such pleasures tempt us far more than anything we may daily experience in the narrow circle of sedentary life.

The most dangerous worldview is the worldview of those have not viewed the world.

While we maintain the unity of the human species, we at the same time repel the depressing assumption of superior and inferior races of men. There are nations more susceptible of cultivation, more highly civilized, more ennobled by mental cultivation than others—but none in themselves nobler than others.

The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.

Our imagination is struck only by what is great; but the lover of natural philosophy should reflect equally on little things.

Insight into universal nature provides an intellectual delight and sense of freedom that no blows of fate and no evil can destroy.

Collaboration operates through a process in which the successful intellectual achievements of one person arouse the intellectual passions and enthusiasms of others.

At no other time has Nature concentrated such a wealth of valuable nourishment into such a small space as in the cocoa bean.

Before being free, it is necessary to be just.