Hegal quotes

Hegal quotes

Dialectic is here understood in the grasping of opposites in their unity or of the positive in the negative.(TSOL ) The Science of Logic

Just as little is seen in pure light as in pure darkness.(TSOL)

We call dialectic the higher movement of reason in which utterly separate terms passes over into each other spontaneously.

To understand how to put questions presupposes a certain education.

Everything is inherently contradictory.

It has become a common jest in history to let great effects arise from small causes.

Freedom is the truth of necessity.

Man is free, this is certainly the substantial nature of man; and not only is this liberty not relinquished in the state, but it is actually in the state that it is first realised. The freedom of nature, the gift of freedom, is not anything real; for the state is the first realisation of freedom.(HOP) History of Philosophy

Although the state may originate in violence, it does not rest on it; violence, in producing the state, has bought into existence only what is justified in and for itself, namely, laws and a constitution.(TPOS) The Philosophy of Spirit

There are two kinds of laws, laws of nature and laws of right.(TPOR)

Man cannot be limited to what is presented to him, but maintains that he has the standard of right within himself. He may be subject to the necessity and force of external authority, but not in the same way as he is to the necessity of nature; for always his inner being says to him how a thing ought to be, and within himself he finds the confirmation or lack of confirmation of what is generally accepted.(TPOR)

What is rational is real and what is real is rational.(TPOR) The Philosophy of Rights

Philosophy cannot teach the state what it should be, but only how it, the ethical universe, is to be known.(TPOR)

As for the individual, every one is a son of his time; so philosophy also is its time apprehended in thoughts. It is just as foolish to fancy that any philosophy can transcend its present world, as that an individual could leap out of his time or jump over Rhodes.

When philosophy paints its grey in grey, one form of life has become old, and by means of grey it cannot be rejuvenated, but only known. The owl of Minerva, takes its flight only when the shades of night are gathering.

The conception and its existence are two sides, distinct yet united, like soul and body. The body is the same life as the soul, and yet the two can be named independently. A soul without a body would not be a living thing, and vice versa. Thus the visible existence of the conception is its body, just as the body obeys the soul which produced it.

The sequence of the conceptions is at the same time a sequence of realisations.(POR)

Personality implies that as this person: I am completely determined on every side and so finite, yet nonetheless I am simply and solely self-relation, and therefore in finitude I know myself as something infinite, – universal, and free.

Person’ is essentially different from ‘subject’, since ‘subject’ is only the possibility of personality; every living thing of any sort is a subject. A person, then, is a subject aware of this subjectivity, since in personality it is of myself alone that I am aware.

Be a person and respect others as persons.’

Personality is that which struggles to lift itself above the restriction of being only subjective and to give itself reality.

A person must translate his freedom into an external sphere in order to exist as Idea.

I possess my life and my body, like other things, only in so far as my will is in them.

From the point of view of others, I am in essence a free entity in my body.

The wrong of slavery lies at the door, not simply of enslavers or conquerors, but of the slaves and the conquered themselves. Slavery occurs in man's transition from the state of nature to genuinely ethical conditions; it occurs in a world where a wrong is still right. At that stage wrong has validity and so is necessarily in place.

Existence as determinate being is in essence being for another.

Once the state has been founded, there can no longer be any heroes. They come on the scene only in uncivilised conditions.

I can alienate to someone else and I can give him the use of my abilities only for a restricted period.

Existence as determinate being is in essence being for another

Once the state has been founded, there can no longer be any heroes. They come on the scene only in uncivilised conditions

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

The family as a legal entity in relation to others must be represented by the husband as its head.

The fact ‘that society has become strong and sure ‘of itself leads to a mitigation of its punishment.

No act of revenge is justified.

Society struggles to make charity less necessary, by discovering the causes of penury and means of its relief.

The Corporation comes on to the scene like a second family.

The state is the actuality of the ethical Idea.

The state is the actuality of concrete freedom.

Public opinion has common sense, but is infected by accidents of opinion, ignorance and perversity.

To be independent of public opinion is the first formal condition of achieving anything great or rational.

Free speech is assured by the innocuous character which it acquires as a result of the stability of government.

World history is a court of judgement.

World history is not the verdict of mere might, but actualisation of the universal mind.

The history of Mind is its own act.

States, nations, and individuals are all the time the unconscious tools of the world mind at work within them.

Each stage of world-history is a necessary moment in the Idea of the World Mind.

History is mind clothing itself with the form of events.

It is the right of heroes to found states.

And so every work of art is a dialogue with everyone who confronts it.

(Lectures on Aesthetics: The Idea of Artistic Beauty)

he sentiment of art like the religious sentiment, like scientific curiosity, is born of wonder; the man who wonders at nothing lives in a state of imbecility and stupidity.

Lectures on Aesthetics: Symbolic Art (1826)

The object of philosophy is an actuality of which social regulations and conditions, are only the superficial outside.

(Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences. Introduction.)

Experience is the real author of growth and advance of philosophy.

Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences. Introduction. (1830)

For these thousands of years the same Architect has directed the work: and that Architect is the one living Mind whose nature is to think.

Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences. Introduction. (1830)

‘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.

Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences. Preliminiary Notion (1830)

What we want is to combine in our process of inquiry the action of the forms of thought with a criticism of them. The forms of thought must be studied in their essential nature and complete development: they are at once the object of research and the action of that object. This is Dialectic, instead of being brought to bear upon the categories from without, it is immanent in their own action.

Shorter Logic (1830)

Religion and morals, however much they may be faith or immediate knowledge, are still on every side conditioned by the mediating process which is termed development, education, training.

Shorter Logic (1830)

Pure Being, as it is mere abstraction, is just Nothing. In fact this definition is implied in saying that God is only the supreme Being and nothing more. The Nothing which the Buddhists make the universal principle, as well as the final aim and goal of everything, is the same abstraction.

Shorter Logic (1830)

The word ‘reality’ is used to mean that something behaves conformably to its essential characteristic or notion. For example, we use the expression: ‘This is a real man’. Here the term does not merely mean outward and immediate existence: but rather that some existence agrees with its notion. In this sense, reality is not distinct from ideality .

Shorter Logic (1830)

A man is nothing but the series of his actions.

Shorter Logic (1830)

The problem of science, and especially of philosophy, consists in eliciting the necessity concealed under the semblance of contingency.

Shorter Logic (1830)

The truth of necessity is, therefore, Freedom.

Shorter Logic (1830)

Necessity is blind only so long as it is not understood.

Shorter Logic (1830)

A good man is aware that the tenor of his conduct is essentially necessary.

Shorter Logic (1830)

Reason is as cunning as it is powerful. Cunning may be said to lie in the intermediative action which, while it permits the objects to follow their own bent and act upon one another till they waste away, and does not itself directly interfere in the process, is nevertheless only working out its own aims.

Shorter Logic (1830)

Every individual being is some one aspect of the Idea.

The Idea, as unity of the Subjective and Objective Idea, is the absolute and all truth, the Idea which thinks itself.

Shorter Logic (1830)

Life is essentially the concept which realises itself only through self-division and reunification.

Philosophy of Nature (1830)

The plant brings forth its light as its own self in the blossom.

Philosophy of Nature (1830)

Only what is living feels a lack.

Philosophy of Nature (1830)

The History of the World travels from East to West, for Europe is absolutely the end of History, Asia the beginning.

Lectures on the Philosophy of History (1831)

The East knew and to the present day knows only that One is Free; the Greek and 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.

Lectures on the Philosophy of History (1831)

Reason governs the world and has consequently governed its history. In relation to this Reason, which is universal and substantial, in and for itself, all else is subordinate, subservient, and the means for its actualization. Moreover, this Reason is immanent in historical existence and reaches its own perfection in and through this existence.

General Introduction to the Philosophy of History (1831)

The morality of the individual, then, consists in his fulfilling the duties of his social position.

General Introduction to the Philosophy of History (1831)

Man is an end in himself only by virtue of the divine in him – that which we designated at the outset as Reason, or, insofar as it has activity and power of self-determination, as Freedom. (General Introduction to the Philoso