Wilhelm von Humboldt Quotes

If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all.

The more freedom you give people to do good, the more freedom they have to do bad as well.

The only freedom I care about is the freedom to do right; the freedom to do wrong I am ready to part with on the cheapest terms to anyone who will take it of me.

I believe everybody is responsible for what they do themselves.

What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do.

Everyone has to make their own decisions. I still believe in that. You just have to be able to accept the consequences without complaining.

Only free people have an incentive to be virtuous. Only people who bear the consequences of their own acts will care about those consequences and try to learn from their mistakes.

Man is fully responsible for his nature and his choices.

Freedom is not the liberty do anything whatsoever. It is the freedom to do good

Freedom is good when the person can use it appropriately. Otherwise it is a disaster.

When one has genuinely chosen a course for oneself it cannot be possible to hold another responsible for it.

Freedom and slavery, the one is the name of virtue, and the other of vice, and both are acts of the will.

The will is truly free, when it is not the slave of vices and sins.

We are accountable for our actions as we exercise our moral agency. If we understand this principle and make righteous choices, our lives will be blessed.

I don't feel guilt. Whatever I wish to do, I do.

As human beings, we are endowed with freedom of choice, and we cannot shuffle off our responsibility upon the shoulders of God or nature. We must shoulder it ourselves. It is our responsibility.

Liberty is not the power of doing what we like, but the right to do what we ought.

Obedience is detachment from the self. This is the most radical detachment of all. But what is the self? The self is the principle of reason and responsibility in us. It is the root of freedom, it is what makes us men.

If we do not discipline ourselves the world will do it for us.

Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility.

A man is accountable to no person for his doings.

It is up to us to make the right choice and the right decisions.

I know what you're going to say! 'They are men, and men should be free.' A free man is dangerous to himself and everyone else. Freedom should be left to those who can put it to good use.

Absolute liberty is absence of restraint; responsibility is restraint; therefore, the ideally free individual is responsible to himself.

The blame is his who chooses: God is blameless.