Quotes from Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

War is progress, peace is stagnation

Uneducated people delight in argument and fault-finding, for it is easy to find fault, but difficult to recognize the good and its inner necessity.

By Nature man is not what he ought to be; only through a transforming process does he arrive at truth.

It is easier to discover a deficiency in individuals, in states, and in Providence, than to see their real import and value

The very fact that something is determined as a limitation implies that the limitation is already transcended.

Wickedness also resides in the gaze that perceives itself as innocent and surrounded by wickedness.

Art is the sensuous presentation of ideas

It is hard to see why we should not turn round and mistrust this very mistrust. Should we not be concerned as to whether this fear of error is not just the error itself?

History teaches us that man learns nothing from history.

The vanity of the contents" of individual experience is scrutable as an inessential trapping drawn into a matter by vested interests "…since it is at the same time the vanity of the self that knows itself to be vain

Not curiosity, not vanity, not the consideration of expediency, not duty and conscientiousness, but an unquenchable, unhappy thirst that brooks no compromise leads us to truth.

It is not a very pleasing spectacle to observe uncultivated ignorance and crudity of mind, with neither form nor taste, without the capacity to concentrate its thoughts on an abstract proposition, still less on a connected statement of such propositions, confidently proclaiming itself to be intellectual freedom and

The significance of that 'absolute commandment', know thyself — whether we look at it in itself or under the historical circumstances of its first utterance — is not to promote mere self-knowledge in respect of the particular capacities, character, propensities, and foibles of the single self. The knowledge it commands means that of man's genuine reality — of what is essentially and ultimately true and real — of spirit as the true and essential bein

Everything turns on grasping and expressing the True, not only as Substance, but equally as Subject.

is—it is necessary to come first to an understanding concerning knowledge, which is looked upon as the instrument by which to take possession of the Absolute, or as the means through which to get a sight of it.

The only Thought which Philosophy brings with it to the contemplation of History, is the simple conception of Reason; that Reason is the Sovereign of the World; that the history of the world, therefore, presents us with a rational process.

What makes comet wine so good is that the water-process detaches itself from the earth and thus brings about an altered state in the planet.

But if they realize that their true freedom consists in the acceptance of principles, of laws which are the own, a synthesis of universal and particular interests becomes possible.

To the philosopher, infinity, knowledge, movement, empirical laws, etc., are things just as familiar {as family relations}. And as her dead brother and uncle are present to the peasant woman, thus Plato, Spinoza, etc. are present to the philosopher. The one has as much reality as the other, but the latter are immortal.

By means of the simple folk remedy of ascribing to feeling what is the millennia-long labor of reason and of its understanding, all are spared the bother of rational insight and knowledge.

The important question of how poverty can be remedied is one which agitates and torments modern societies especially

what is rational is real and what is real is rational

The system of logic is the realm of shadows, the world of simple essentialities, freed of all sensuous concretion. To study this science, to dwell and to labor in this realm of shadows, is the absolute culture and discipline of consciousness.

To babble unintelligible prayers, to read masses, to recite rosaries, to practice ceremonies of religious worship empty of meaning, this is the conduct of the dead. Man tries to turn completely into an object, to subject himself entirely to the rule of what is alien. Such service is called devoutness. PHARISEES!