Insight into universal nature provides an intellectual delight and sense of freedom that no blows of fate and no evil can destroy.
Interpretation
Understanding the essence of nature offers profound joy and liberation that cannot be taken away.
This quote by Alexander Von Humboldt emphasizes that gaining insight into the fundamental aspects of the natural world brings unparalleled joy and a sense of freedom. Such intellectual pursuits provide resilience against life's hardships and negativity, suggesting that true freedom and happiness lie in knowledge and understanding.
In practice
This quote could be used in a speech about the importance of education and understanding the world around us.
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.
Die gefährlichste Weltanschauung ist die Weltanschauung derer, die die Welt nie angeschaut haben. (The most dangerous worldview is the worldview of those who have not viewed the world)
Like every beginner, I have thought you could beat, pummel and thrash an idea into existence. Under such treatment, of course, any decent idea folds up its paws, turns on its back, fixes its eyes on eternity, and dies.
It may be glorious to write Thoughts that shall glad the two or three High souls, like those far stars that come in sight Once in a century.
I've learnt something from every failure. The products I helped design at the first two companies I worked for were utter failures. But now I know why.
When you are trying to impress people with words, the more you say, the more common you appear, and the less in control. Even if you are saying something banal, it will seem original if you make it vague, open-ended, and sphinxlike.
Maturity includes the recognition that no one is going to see anything in us that we don't see in ourselves. Stop waiting for a producer. Produce yourself.
I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom: As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.