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

— Wilhelm von Humboldt

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Source, in full

(1820); in Jürgen Trabant, "How relativistic are Humboldts "Weltansichten"?"; in Martin Putz; Marjolyn Verspoor, eds. (2000), Explorations in linguistic relativity, John Benjamins Publishing Company, ISBN 978-90-272-3706-4

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Communication

More quotes by Wilhelm von Humboldt

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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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Wilhelm von Humboldt (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.