It is easier to discover a deficiency in individuals, in states, and in Providence, than to see their real import and value.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Topics: Faults, Mistakes
We may affirm absolutely that nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Topics: Accomplishment, Passion
To him who looks upon the world rationally, the world in its turn presents a rational aspect. The relation is mutual.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Topics: Reason, World
What experience and history teach us is that people and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Topics: Government, History
What is rational is actual, and what is actual is rational.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Topics: Reason
Nothing is easier than to judge what has substance and quality; to comprehend it is harder; and what is hardest is to combine both functions and produce an account of it.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
The true courage of civilized nations is readiness for sacrifice in the service of the state, so that the individual counts as only one amongst many. The important thing here is not personal mettle but aligning oneself with the universal.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
When we walk the streets at night in safety, it does not strike us that this might be otherwise. This habit of feeling safe has become second nature, and we do not reflect on just how this is due solely to the working of special institutions. Commonplace thinking often has the impression that force holds the state together, but in fact its only bond is the fundamental sense of order which everybody possesses.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Topics: Order
Amid the pressure of great events, a general principle gives no help.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Topics: Principles
The East knew and to the present day knows only that One is Free; the Greek and the Roman world, that some are free; the German World knows that All are free. The first political form therefore which we observe in History, is Despotism, the second Democracy and Aristocracy, the third, Monarchy.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Topics: Freedom
What experience and history teach is this — that nations and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Topics: One liners, History, Historians
Public opinion contains all kinds of falsity and truth, but it takes a great man to find the truth in it. The great man of the age is the one who can put into words the will of his age, tell his age what its will is, and accomplish it. What he does is the heart and the essence of his age, he actualizes his age. The man who lacks sense enough to despise public opinion expressed in gossip will never do anything great.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Topics: Opinion, Public opinion
As high as mind stands above nature, so high does the state stand above physical life. Man must therefore venerate the state as a secular deity. The march of God in the world, that is what the State is.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Poverty in itself does not make men into a rabble; a rabble is created only when there is joined to poverty a disposition of mind, an inner indignation against the rich, against society, against the government.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Topics: The Poor, Poverty
The Few assume to be the deputies, but they are often only the despoilers of the Many.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
It is a matter of perfect indifference where a thing originated; the only question is: “Is it true in and for itself?”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Topics: Originality, Innovation
The learner always begins by finding fault, but the scholar sees the positive merit in everything.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
The courage of the truth is the first condition of philosophic study.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Topics: Philosophers, Philosophy
Education is the art of making man ethical.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Topics: Education
When liberty is mentioned, we must always be careful to observe whether it is not really the assertion of private interests which is thereby designated.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Topics: Liberty
Nothing great in this world has been accomplished without passion.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Topics: Accomplishment, Great, Enthusiasm, Greatness & Great Things, Passion
Genuine tragedies in the world are not conflicts between right and wrong. They are conflicts between two rights.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Mere goodness can achieve little against the power of nature.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Topics: Goodness
The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Topics: History, Freedom
No man is a hero to his valet. This is not because the hero is no hero, but because the valet is a valet.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Topics: Heroes, Heroism, Heroes/Heroism
Life has a value only when it has something valuable as its object.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Topics: Goals, Aspirations
If you want to love you must serve, if you want freedom you must die.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Topics: Service
We do not need to be shoemakers to know if our shoes fit, and just as little have we any need to be professionals to acquire knowledge of matters of universal interest.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Topics: Professionalism, Experts
An idea is always a generalization, and generalization is a property of thinking. To generalize means to think.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Topics: Thinking
Truth in philosophy means that concept and external reality correspond.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Topics: Philosophy, Philosophers
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Friedrich Schleiermacher German Theologian
- Jacques Derrida French Philosopher, Literary Theorist
- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz German Philosopher, Mathematician
- Immanuel Kant Prussian German Philosopher
- Karl Marx German Philosopher, Economist
- John Rawls American Philosopher
- Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach German Philosopher
- Wilhelm Dilthey German Philosopher
- Charles Sanders Peirce American Philosopher
- Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel German Man of Letters
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