"We must now simply regard education as a direct guide to propriety of conduct, a good character, and a pretty fair amount of knowledge. It effects often much more by the bringing together a number of influences, the intended result of which may indeed be frustrated, but which produces by the conflict with the individuality of the person being educated, that which the direct influences could never have brought about; for the result of any system of education depends entirely upon the power that a man possesses of applying the influences brought to bear upon him to the ends of self-culture, or whether he allows himself to be moulded by them."

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Added on April 10, 2026
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Original Language: English

Sources

. Letter I. 26 (pp. 189-190)

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wilhelm_von_Humboldt