Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

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

“To be independent of public opinion is the first formal condition of achieving anything great.”

“The Few assume to be the deputies, but they are often only the despoilers of the Many.”

“Amid the pressure of great events, a general principle gives no help.”

“Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion.”

“We must have a new mythology, but it must place itself at the service of ideas, it must become a mythology of reason. Mythology must become philosophical, so that the people may become rational, and philosophy must become mythological, so that philosophers may become sensible. If we do not give ideas a form that is aesthetic, i.e., mythological, they will hold no interest for people.”

“It is easier to discover a deficiency in individuals, in states, and in Providence, than to see their real import and value.”

“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.”

“We do not need to be shoemakers to know if our shoes fit, and just as little have we any need to be professionals to acquire knowledge of matters of universal interest.”

“I'm not ugly, but my beauty is a total creation.”

“The owl of Minerva begins its flight only with the coming of the dusk.”

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

“The one who merely flees is not yet free. In fleeing he is still conditioned by that from which he flees.”

“The important question of how poverty can be remedied is one which agitates and torments modern societies especially”

“The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom.”

“Animals are in possession of themselves; their soul is in possession of their body. But they have no right to their life, because they do not will it.”

“Governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deducted from it.”

“Propounding peace and love without practical or institutional engagement is delusion, not virtue.”

“If we are in a general way permitted to regard human activity in the realm of the beautiful as a liberation of the soul, as a release from constraint and restriction, in short to consider that art does actually alleviate the most overpowering and tragic catastrophes by means of the creations it offers to our contemplation and enjoyment, it is the art of music which conducts us to the final summit of that ascent to freedom.”

“All that is real is reasonable, and all that is reasonable is real.”