Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (German Philosopher)

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

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

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