230 Quotes by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

With regard to the purpose, one should not immediately or should not merely think of the form in which it is in consciousness, as a determination on hand in the representation. Through the concept of inner purposiveness, Kant re-awakened the idea in general and that of life in particular. Aristotle’s determination of life already contains the inner purposiveness and thus stands infinitely far beyond the concept of modern teleology which has only the finite, the external purposiveness in view.

It is specially characteristic of the German that the more servile he on the one hand is, the more uncontrolled is he on the other; restraint and want of restraint – originality, is the angel of darkness that buffets us.

Only by resolving can a human being step into actuality, however bitter this may be to him. Inertia lacks the will to abandon the inward brooding which allows it to retain everything as as a possibility. But possibility is not yet actuality.

On the stage on which we are observing it, – Universal History – Spirit displays itself in its most concrete reality.

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

Reading the morning newspaper is the realist’s morning prayer.

The most obvious symptoms of an epoch-making system are the misunderstandings and the awkward conduct of its adversaries.

The middle class, to which the civil servants belong, has a political consciousness and is the most conspicuously educated class. For this reason, it is the mainstay of the state as far as integrity and intelligence are concerned. Consequently, the level of a state which has no middle class cannot be high.

Genuine tragedy is a case not of right against wrong but of right against right – two equally justified ethical principles embodied in people of unchangeable will.