Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) was a German philosopher. He was the last of the great philosophical system builders of modern times—his work, following upon that of Immanuel Kant, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, and Friedrich Schelling, celebrates the pinnacle of classical German philosophy.
Hegel was born in Stuttgart. His teaching career was disrupted in 1806 by Napoleon I’s victory at the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt. When headmaster of the gymnasium at Nuremberg 1808–16, he published his first great work Phanomenologie des Geistes (1807; The Phenomenology of Mind,) which explains how the human mind has progressed from mere consciousness through self-consciousness, reason, spirit, and religion, to absolute knowledge.
Hegel is also known for his three-stage process of dialectical reasoning, set out in his Wissenschaft der Logik (1812–16; Science of Logic,) which underlies his idealist concepts of the progress of history, and the evolution of ideas and human consciousness.
As a total idealist inspired by Christian insights and grounded in his mastery of concrete knowledge, Hegel expounded all of the knowledge—logical, natural, human, and divine—in a dialectical scheme that shifted from thesis to antithesis and back again to a higher and richer synthesis. In 1817, he produced a compendium of his entire philosophical system entitled Encyclopadie der philosophischen Wissenschaften in Grundrisse (Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, Comprising Logic, Philosophy of Nature and of Mind.)
Hegel’s impact on ensuing generations is immeasurable. Hegel influenced the Danish existentialist Søren Kierkegaard, the Marxists who turned to social action, and the analytic philosopher Bertrand Russell.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
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
The learner always begins by finding fault, but the scholar sees the positive merit in everything.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
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
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
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: Historians, History, One liners
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
Nothing great in this world has been accomplished without passion.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Topics: Enthusiasm, Accomplishment, Passion, Greatness & Great Things, Great
The valor that struggles is better than the weakness that endures.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Topics: Bravery, Valor
Life has a value only when it has something valuable as its object.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Topics: Goals, Aspirations
Amid the pressure of great events, a general principle gives no help.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Topics: Principles
Genuine tragedies in the world are not conflicts between right and wrong. They are conflicts between two rights.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
We may affirm absolutely that nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Topics: Passion, Accomplishment
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
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
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
In history an additional result is commonly produced by human actions beyond that which they aim at and obtain—that which they immediately recognize and desire. They gratify their own interest; but something further is thereby accomplished, latent in the actions in question, though not present to their consciousness, and not included in their design.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Topics: Consequences
Once the state has been founded, there can no longer be any heroes. They come on the scene only in uncivilized conditions.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Topics: Heroes/Heroism, Heroism, Heroes
The Few assume to be the deputies, but they are often only the despoilers of the Many.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
The essence of the modern state is that the universal be bound up with the complete freedom of its particular members and with private well-being, that thus the interests of family and civil society must concentrate themselves on the state. It is only when both these moments subsist in their strength that the state can be regarded as articulated and genuinely organized.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State… For Truth is the unity of the universal and subjective will; and the Universal is to be found in the State, in its laws, its universal and rational arrangements. The State is the Divine Idea as it exists on earth. We have in it, therefore, the object of history in a more definite shape than before; that in which Freedom obtains objectivity.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Topics: Civilization
Truth in philosophy means that concept and external reality correspond.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Topics: Philosophers, Philosophy
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
America is, therefore the land of the future, where, in the ages that lie before us, the burden of the World’s history shall reveal itself. It is a land of desire for all those who are weary of the historical lumber-room of Old Europe.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Topics: America
Education is the art of making man ethical.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Topics: Education
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: Innovation, Originality
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: History, Government
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, Heroes/Heroism, Heroism
The courage of the truth is the first condition of philosophic study.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Topics: Philosophy, Philosophers
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: Mistakes, Faults
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