The German Tradition of Self-Cultivation

"Although Humboldt had so little good to say of worldly success, it was not pure introspection or day-dreaming that delighted him, not mental activity with no external object, but on the contrary a ceaseless turning over in his mind of the results of his experience in his quest for understanding, a distillation of the widest possible experience of life into wisdom. It is in this sense that he aimed at universality. While at his busiest with plans for educational reform he writes: 

«My life must continue to be, as before, one of contemplation and reflection. In general, perhaps the best thing a man can do with his life is to take away with him a living picture of the world, properly unified. For me in particular no task is more suited, more imposed upon me by my nature.»

He had said the same in the early days in Rome: 

«He who can say to himself when he dies: ‘I have grasped and made into a part of my humanity as much of the world as I could’, that man has reached fulfilment... In the higher sense of the word, he has really lived.»" (Bruford idézi Humboldtot, 24)

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