When individuals and nations have once got in their heads the abstract concept of full-blown liberty, there is nothing like it in its uncontrollable strength. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel More Quotes by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel More Quotes From Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel The evident character of this defective cognition of which mathematics is proud, and on which it plumes itself before philosophy, rests solely on the poverty of its purpose and the defectiveness of its stuff, and is therefore of a kind that philosophy must spurn Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel purposecharacterphilosophy What experience and history teach is this - that nations and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on any lessons they might have drawn from it. Variant: What experience and history teach is this - that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel governmentprinciplespeople The sublime in art is the attempt to express the infinite without finding in the realm of phenomena any object which proves itself fitting for this representation. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel sublimeexpressionart What is reasonable is real; that which is real is reasonable. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel reasonablereal The heart-throb for the welfare of humanity therefore passes into the ravings of an insane self-conceit, into the fury of consciousness to preserve itself from destruction; and it does this by expelling from itself the perversion which it is itself, and by striving to look on it and express it as something else. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel humanityselfheart Every philosophy is complete in itself and, like a genuine work of art, contains the totality. Just as the works of Apelles and Sophocles, if Raphael and Shakespeare had known them, should not have appeared to them as mere preliminary exercises for their own work, but rather as a kindred force of the spirit, so, too reason cannot find in its own earlier forms mere useful preliminary exercises for itself. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel exercisephilosophyart The sole work and deed of universal freedom is therefore death, a death too which has no inner significance or filling, for what is negated is the empty point of the absolutely free self. It is thus the coldest and meanest of all deaths, with no more significance than cutting off a head of cabbage or swallowing a mouthful of water. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel cuttingfreedomdeath The life of God - the life which the mind apprehends and enjoys as it rises to the absolute unity of all things - may be described as a play of love with itself; but this idea sinks to an edifying truism, or even to a platitude, when it does not embrace in it the earnestness, the pain, the patience, and labor, involved in the negative aspect of things. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel paingodplay No man is a hero to his valet de chamber Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel valetheromen 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 aspectlooksworld In history, we are concerned with what has been and what is; in philosophy, however, we are concerned not with what belongs exclusively to the past or to the future, but with that which is, both now and eternally in short, with reason. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel reasonphilosophypast 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 originalitymatterperfect 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 individualfaultsreal Reason is just as cunning as she is powerful. Her cunning consists principally in her mediating activity, which, by causing objects to act and re-act on each other in accordance with their own nature, in this way, without any direct interference in the process, carries out reason's intentions. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel powerfulreasonway In the case of all other sciences, arts, skills, and crafts, everyone is convinced that a complex and laborious programme of learning and practice is necessary for competence. Yet when it comes to philosophy, there seems to be a currently prevailing prejudice to the effect that, although not everyone who has eyes and fingers, and is given leather and last, is at once in a position to make shoes, everyone nevertheless immediately understands how to philosophize. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel philosophicalphilosophyart It is because the method of physics does not satisfy the comprehension that we have to go on further. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel physicsgoes-ondoe ...if the fear of falling into error is the source of a mistrust in Science, which in the absence of any such misgivings gets on with the work itself and actually does know, it is difficult to see why, conversely, a mistrust should not be placed in this mistrust, and why we should not be concerned that this fear of erring is itself the very error. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel errorsfearfall The essence of the modern state is the union of the universal with the full freedom of the particular, and with the welfare of individuals. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel welfareunionsessence 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 designdesirescience The people will learn to feel the dignity of man. They will not merely demand their rights, which have been trampled in the dust, but themselves will take them - make them their own. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel freedomrightsmen
