Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Quotes

In immediate self-consciousness the simple ego is absolute object, which, however, is for us or in itself absolute mediation, and has as its essential moment substantial and solid independence. The dissolution of that simple unity is the result of the first experience; through this there is posited a pure self-consciousness, and a consciousness which is not purely for itself, but for another, i.e. as an existent consciousness, consciousness in the form and shape of thinghood. Both moments are essential, since, in the first instance, they are unlike and opposed, and their reflexion into unity has not yet come to light, they stand as two opposed forms or modes of consciousness. The one is independent whose essential nature is to be for itself, the other is dependent whose essence is life or existence for another. The former is the Master, or Lord, the latter is the Bondsman.

The spirit is never at rest but always engaged in ever progressive motion, in giving itself a new form.

India as a land of Desire formed an essential element in general history. From the most ancient times downwards, all nations have directed their wishes and longings to gaining access to the treasures of this land of marvels, the most costly which the earth presents, treasures of nature - pearls, diamonds, perfumes, rose essences, lions, elephants, etc. - as also treasures of wisdom. The way by which these treasures have passed to the West has at all times been a matter of world historical importance bound up with the fate of nations.

We must hold to the conviction that it is the nature of truth to prevail when its time has come, and that it appears only when this time has come, and therefore never appears prematurely, nor finds a public not ripe to receive it; also we must accept that the individual needs that this should be so in order to verify what is as yet a matter for himself alone, and to experience the conviction, which in the first place belongs only to a particular individual, as something universally held.

In the religion of absolute Spirit the outward form of God is not made by the human spirit. God Himself is, in accordance with the true Idea, self-consciousness which exists in and for itself, Spirit. He produces Himself of His own act, appears as Being for “Other”; He is, by His own act, the Son; in the assumption of a definite form as the Son, the other part of the process is present, namely, that God loves the Son, posits Himself as identical with Him, yet also as distinct from Him. The assumption of form makes its appearance in the aspect of determinate Being as independent totality, but as a totality which is retained within love; here, for the first time, we have Spirit in and for itself. The self-consciousness of the Son regarding Himself is at the same time His knowledge of the Father; in the Father the Son has knowledge of His own self, of Himself. At our present stage, on the contrary, the determinate existence of God as God is not existence posited by Himself, but by what is Other. Here Spirit has stopped short half way.

One cannot speak of an injustice of nature in the unequal distribution of possessions and resources, for nature is not free and is therefore neither just nor unjust.

Philosophy is, by its very nature, something esoteric, neither made for the vulgar as it stands [für sich], nor capable of being got up to suit the vulgar taste; it only is philosophy in virtue of being directly opposed to the understanding and hence even more opposed to healthy common sense, under which label we understand the limitedness in space and time of a race of men; in its relationship to common sense the world of philosophy is in and for itself an inverted world .21 When Alexander, having heard that his teacher was publishing written essays on his philosophy, wrote to him from the heart of Asia that he ought not to have vulgarized the philosophizing they had done together, Aristotle defended himself by saying that his philosophy was published and yet also not published. In the same way philosophy [now] must certainly admit [erkennen] the possibility that the people can rise to it, but it must not lower itself to the people. But in these times of freedom and equality, in which such a large educated public has been formed, that will not allow anything to be shut away from it, but considers itself good for anything – or everything good enough for it – in these times even the highest beauty and the greatest good have not been able to escape the fate of being mishandled by the common mob which cannot rise to what it sees floating above it, until it has been made common enough to be fit for their possessing; so that vulgarization has forced its way into being recognized as a meritorious kind of labour. There is no aspect of the higher striving of the human spirit that has not experienced this fate. An Idea, in art or in philosophy, needs only to be glimpsed in order for the processing to start by which it is properly stirred up into material for the pulpit, for text books, and for the household use of the newspaper public.

Die Person muß sich eine äußere Sphäre ihrer Freiheit geben, um als Idee zu sein.

The goal to be reached is the mind's insight into what knowing is. Impatience asks for the impossible, wants to reach the goal without the means of getting there. The length of the journey has to be borne with, for every moment is necessary, ... because by nothing less could that all-pervading mind ever manage to become conscious of what itself is — for that reason, the individual mind, in the nature of the case, cannot expect by less toil to grasp what its own substance contains.

In a state which is really articulated rationally all the laws and organizations are nothing but a realization of freedom in its essential characteristics. When this is the case, the individual’s reason finds in these institutions, only the actuality of his own essence, and if he obeys these laws, he coincides, not with something alien to himself, but simply with what is his own. Freedom of choice, of course, is often equally called ‘freedom’; but freedom of choice is only non-rational freedom, choice and self-determination issuing not from the rationality of the will but from fortuitous impulses and their dependence on sense and the external world.

Este movimiento dialéctico que ejerce la conciencia sobre sí misma, tanto en su saber como en su objeto, en la medida en que de él surge para ella su nuevo y verdadero objeto es propiamente aquello que denominamos experiencia. Desde este punto de vista, en el proceso recién descrito todavía hay que destacar un momento que puede arrojar una nueva luz sobre el aspecto científico de la presentación que haremos a continuación. La conciencia sabe algo, este objeto es la esencia o el en-sí; pero también es el en-sí para la conciencia; con esto surge la ambigüedad de esta verdad. Ya vemos que ahora la conciencia tiene dos objetos, uno el primer en-sí, otro el ser para-ella de este en-sí. El segundo sólo parece a primera vista la reflexión de la conciencia en sí misma, una representación no de un objeto, sino únicamente de su saber del primer objeto. Lo que pasa, como se ha mostrado antes, es que el primer objeto se altera, deja de ser el en-sí y se convierte para la conciencia en un objeto que sólo es el en-sí para ella. Pero con esto el ser para ella de ese en-sí es lo verdadero, lo que significa que es la esencia o su objeto. Este nuevo objeto contiene la anulación del primero, es la experiencia hecha sobre él.

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.

History is not the soil in which happiness grows. The periods of happiness in it are the blank pages of history.

Die Eule der Minerva beginnt erst mit der einbrechenden Dämmerung ihren Flug.

The state of nature is in theory what we find it in practice. Freedom as the ideal of the original state of nature does not exist as original and nature. It must first be acquired and won; and that is possible only through an infinite process of the discipline of knowledge and will power. The state of nature, therefore is rather the state of injustice, violence, untamed natural impulses – of inhuman deeds and emotions.