Georg Hegel, fully Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Hegel, fully Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

German Philosopher

Author Quotes

We cannot of the mind to actually govern what did not become a reality in itself reasonable

Whatever happens, every individual is a child of his time; so philosophy too is its own time apprehended in thoughts. It is just as absurd to fancy that a philosophy can transcend its contemporary world as it is to fancy that an individual can overleap his own age, jump over Rhodes.

The true theater of history is therefore the temperate zone.

There is nothing which is not an intermediate state between being and nothing.

To comprehend what is, is the task of philosophy: and what is is Reason.


Whatever is reasonable is true, and whatever is true is reasonable.

The truth of necessity is, therefore, Freedom.

There is nothing, nothing in heaven, or in nature or in mind or anywhere else which does not equally contain both immediacy and mediation.

To him who looks at the world rationally the world looks rationally back.

We have seen the same arbitrariness also seize control of philosophy's content, setting out on the adventures of thought and imposing itself for a while on sincere and honest striving, but otherwise taken, too, to be a foolishness that had risen to the point of madness. Yet instead of being imposing or mad, its basic content more readily and more often displayed quite familiar trivialities, JUSt as the form displayed the sheer mannerism of a deliberate, methodical, and easily procured witticism involving baroque connections and a forced eccentricity, just as generally, behind the visage of seriousness, it displayed deception towards itself and the public. By contrast, on the other side, we have seen the sort of shallowness that stamps its lack of thoughts as a skepticism that regards itself as clever, and a critical position that is modest about reason's prospects, a shallowness whose arrogance and vanity mount in tandem with the emptiness of its ideas. - For some time these two directions of the spirit have simulated German earnestness, wearied its deeper philosophical need and brought about an indifference to the science of philosophy - indeed, even a scorn for the latter - with the result that now a self-styled humbleness even thinks itself entitled to enter the discussion and pass judgment on the profoundest dimension of philosophy and to deny it the rational knowledge whose form used to be conceived in terms of proofs.

When a father inquired about the best method of educating his son in ethical conduct, a Pythagorean replied: Make him a citizen of a state with good laws.

The sovereign works on the middle class at the top, and Corporations work on it at the bottom.

The truth of subjectivity is attained only in a subject, and the truth of personality only in a person.

Think for yourself is a phrase which people often use as if it had some special significance. The fact is, no man can think for another, any more than he can eat or drink for him. In point of contents, thought is only true in proportion as it sinks itself in the facts; and in point of form it is no private act of the subject, but rather that attitude of consciousness where the abstract self, freed from all the special limitations to which its ordinary states are liable, restricts itself to that universal action in which it is identical with all individuals.

To him who looks upon the world rationally, the world in its turn presents a rational aspect. The relation is mutual.


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, just because it is the very essence of mind, and that as its very actuality. Whole continents, Africa and the East, have never had this Idea, and are without it still. The Greeks and Romans, Plato and Aristotle, even the Stoics, did not have it. On the contrary, they saw that it is only by birth or by strength of character, education, or philosophy that the human being is actually free. It was through Christianity that this Idea came into the world. According to Christianity, the individual as such has an infinite value as the object and aim of divine love, destined as mind to live in absolute relationship with God himself, and have God's mind dwelling in him: i.e. man is implicitly destined to supreme freedom.

The spirit of a nation is reflected in its history, its religion, and the degree of its political freedom. The improvement of individual morality is a matter involving one’s private religion, one’s parents, one’s personal efforts, and one’s individual situation. The cultivation of the spirit of the people as a whole requires in addition the respective contributions of folk religion and political institutions.

The truth, however, of this abstract universality, which is indeterminate in itself and finds its determinacy in the material mentioned in Paragraph 20, is self-determining universality, the will, freedom. In having universality, or itself qua infinite form for its object, content, and aim, the will is free not only in itself but for itself also; it is the Idea in its truth.

This final aim is God's purpose with the world; but God is the absolutely perfect Being, and can, therefore, will nothing but himself.

To impose on others is hypocrisy; while to impose on oneself is a stage beyond hypocrisy.

We learn from history that we do not learn from history.

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.

The spoken word unites the objectivity of the corporeal sign with the subjectivity of gesture, the articulation of the latter with the self-awareness of the former.

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Hegel, fully Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
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German Philosopher