“... The 19th was a century of letter-writers: as well as extraordinary correspondents like Alexander vonHumboldt, who is said to have written more than fifty thousand letters in his long life, millions of ordinary individuals could now send one another messages easily and economically. The British postal ...”

“... annals of 19th-century science overflow with testimonies to the powers and pleasures of the body: Alexander vonHumboldt (echoed by Darwin) exulting over the sublimities of tropical landscapes, James Clerk Maxwell affirming the muscular knowledge derived from experiment, dozens of hardy travellers (including ...”

“... that great treasury of German science and literature, Lessing and Schiller, Goethe and Alexander vonHumboldt.’ German culture seemed doubly the culture of freedom: it was not only the language of human idealism, but the gateway out of the ghetto. Indeed language became a weapon – in the hands of the ...”

“... with the locals. Sapir, who came to America when young, still had the classic Germans before him; Alexander vonHumboldt came more readily to his mind than John Locke did. The issues between us, Leibniz said of Locke, are matters of some importance; he referred to Plato the good guy and Aristotle, not so good. Many of ...”

“... anyone even touched by the endemic.’ Parents, siblings, distant cousins.From Rudolf Virchow to Alexander vonHumboldt, Europe’s greatest scientists had tried to solve the goitre problem. Yet the solution, when it came, did not emerge from a university or research institution, or even a hospital, but from a young ...”

“... of an enormous Prussian royal palace. Defenders of the new palace claim that as home to the Humboldt Forum – a collection of objects from Africa and Asia – it demonstrates Germany’s eagerness to engage in a ‘dialogue of cultures’. This is disingenuous. The building’s façade, sponsored partly by German business and testament to a ...”

“... on the philosophical wing of the Romantic movement (primarily J.G. Hamann, J.G. Herder and Alexander vonHumboldt), and was later elaborated and refined by Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and Wittgenstein. The core idea here is that human beings are self-interpreting animals. What Taylor means by this is that the ...”

“... genius. There were collaborative ventures, too, and regular gatherings that attracted the Humboldt brothers and the Schlegels. But there was also friction. Wieland was kind but vain, Herder a depressive hypochondriac, Goethe superior. Schiller arrived during Goethe’s two-year stay in Italy, and was snubbed when Goethe returned. It was six years ...”

“... unprecedented in history, had a precedent in literature. In a Spanish version of the Romance of Alexander, the hero makes his discovery of Asia by sea, and the poet is emphatic in pointing out that ‘Alexander, of all the sailors, was first to see the land.’ Columbus – who modelled himself so exactly on the standard ...”

“... in a conformist desert. But however heavy the yoke of opinion, that of law was undoubtedly light. Alexander Herzen commented that ‘in England the policeman at your door or within your doors adds a feeling of security.’ Malwida von Meysenburg experienced ‘a pleasant feeling of freedom’ when no one asked to see her ...”

“... contagious.In the other direction, West Germany’s triumph in Switzerland in 1954 (das Wunder von Bern), coming back from 0-2 down against a storied Hungary side, became a metaphor for the country’s postwar recovery. ‘We’ve shown the world what we’re worth, we’re back, losers no more,’ Günter Grass wrote; ‘Wir sind wieder ...”