Alexander Humboldt Quotes

#1. I saw with regret, (and all scientific men have shared this feeling) that whilst the number of accurate instruments was daily increasing, we were still ignorant

Alexander Von Humboldt

#2. The philosophical study of nature endeavors, in the the vicissitudes of phenomena, to connect the present with the past.

Alexander Von Humboldt

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

Alexander Von Humboldt

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

Alexander Von Humboldt

#5. Nature can be so soothing to the tormented mind

Alexander Von Humboldt

#6. People often say that I'm curious about too many things at once ... But can you really forbid a man from harbouring a desire to know and embrace everything that surrounds him?

Alexander Von Humboldt

#7. I came to Berlin not to visit its museums and galleries, its operas, its theaters ... but for the sake of seeing and speaking with the world's greatest living man - Alexander von Humboldt.

Bayard Taylor

#8. There are some races more cultured and advanced and ennobled by education than others; but there are no races nobler than others. All are equally destined for freedom.

Alexander Von Humboldt

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

Alexander Von Humboldt

#10. Statistical projections which speak to the senses without fatiguing the mind, possess the advantage of fixing the attention on a great number of important facts.

Alexander Von Humboldt

#11. This view of a living nature where man is nothing is both odd and sad. Here, in a fertile land, in an eternal greenness, you search in vain for traces of man; you feel you are carried into a different world from the one you were born into.

Alexander Von Humboldt

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

Alexander Von Humboldt

#13. [Alexander von Humboldt was the] greatest scientific traveller who ever lived.

Charles Darwin

#14. I consider him [Alexander von Humboldt] the most important scientist whom I have met.

Thomas Jefferson

#15. Every scientist is a descendant of Humboldt. We are all his family.

Emil Heinrich Du Bois-Reymond

#16. Cruelty to animals is one of the most significant vices of a low and ignoble people. Wherever one notices them, they constitute a sign of ignorance and brutality which cannot be painted over even by all the evidence of wealth and luxury.

Alexander Von Humboldt

#17. Before being free, it is necessary to be just

Alexander Von Humboldt

#18. The expression of vanity and self-love becomes less offensive, when it retains something of simplicity and frankness.

Alexander Von Humboldt

#19. The most dangerous worldviews are the worldviews of those who have never viewed the world.

Alexander Von Humboldt

#20. Mere communion with nature, mere contact with the free air, exercise a soothing yet comforting and strengthening influence on the wearied mind, calm the storm of passion, and soften the heart when shaken by sorrow to its inmost depths.

Alexander Von Humboldt

#21. Alexander von Humboldt's wide-ranging Views of Nature is a masterpiece of nineteenth-century natural history, at once science and art. Mark W. Person's stunning new translation makes the wonders of this classic accessible to the English-language world of the present.

Daniel Walker Howe

#22. 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.

Alexander Von Humboldt

#23. But when on shore, & wandering in the sublime forests, surrounded by views more gorgeous than even Claude ever imagined, I enjoy a delight which none but those who have experienced it can understand - If it is to be done, it must be by studying Humboldt.

Charles Darwin

#24. This man [Alexander von Humboldt] is as knowledgeable as a whole academy.

Claude Louis Berthollet

#25. Petroleum is the product of a distillation from great depth and issues from the primitive rocks beneath which the forces of all volcanic action lie.

Alexander Von Humboldt

#26. Alexander von Humboldt, yet another friend, may have had Agassiz at least partly in mind when he observed that there are three stages in scientific discovery: first, people deny that it is true; then they deny that it is important; finally they credit the wrong person. At

Bill Bryson

#27. This aspect of animated nature, in which man is nothing, has something in it strange and sad ... Here, in a fertile country, adorned with eternal verdure, we seek in vain the traces of the power of man; we seem to be transported into a world different from that which gave us birth.

Alexander Von Humboldt

#28. The real discoverer of South America was [Alexander von] Humboldt, since his work was more useful for our people than the work of all conquerors.

Simon Bolivar

#29. The study of maps and the perusal of travel books aroused in me a secret fascination that was at times almost irresistible.

Alain De Botton

#30. He [Alexander von Humboldt] was to science what Shakespeare was to the drama.

Robert G. Ingersoll

#31. Columbus gave Europe a New World; [Alexander von] Humboldt made it known in its physical, material, intellectual, and moral aspects.

Jose Cipriano De La Luz Y Caballero

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

Alexander Von Humboldt

#33. With most animals, as with man, the alertness of the senses diminishes after years of work, after domestic habits and progress of culture.

Alexander Von Humboldt

#34. [Alexander von] Humboldt showers us with true treasures.

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe