Reason cannot desire for man any condition other than that in which not only every individual enjoys the most absolute, unbounded freedom to develop himself out of himself, in true individuality, but in which physical nature, as well, need receive no other shaping by human hands than that which is given to her voluntarily by each individual, according to the measure of his wants and his inclinations, restricted only by the limits of his energy and his rights.
Wilhelm von Humboldt, The Limits of State Action (1792), English edition The Sphere and Duties of Government, as translated by Joseph Coulthard (1854).