We assert then that nothing has been accomplished without interest on the part of the actors; and — if interest be called passion, inasmuch as the wh… - Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Nothing great in the world was accomplished without passion.

We may affirm absolutely that nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion.

Only one word more concerning the desire to teach the world what it ought to be. For such a purpose philosophy at least always comes too late. Philosophy, as the thought of the world, does not appear until reality has completed its formative process, and made itself ready. History thus corroborates the teaching of the conception that only in the maturity of reality does the ideal appear as counterpart to the real, apprehends the real world in its substance, and shapes it into an intellectual kingdom. 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.

Truth is found neither in the thesis nor the antithesis, but in an emergent synthesis which reconciles the two.

In history, we are concerned with what has been and what is; in philosophy, however, we are concerned not with what belongs exclusively to the past or to the future, but with that which is, both now and eternally — in short, with reason.