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Cheerfulness is, as it were, the sunny ray of life. This is the constant portion of none, and the word itself comprehends also a multitude of degrees and modifications. The sum of all is this — that man, ever from inward and outward circumstances, forms for himself a nature which is peculiar to him, and is the track on which his life glides. This is a beneficent arrangement of Providence, for no struggle after harmony and elevation is ever without effect.

— Wilhelm von Humboldt Attributed Beautiful Thoughts from German and Spanish Authors (1880)

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More quotes by Wilhelm von Humboldt

The diversity of languages is not a diversity of signs and sounds but a diversity of views of the world.

The finest fruit earth holds up to its Maker is a finished man.

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.

There must be something in it, as yet totally ununderstood by us, perhaps something founded on a totally unknown relationship between body and spirit. 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.

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