Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel - History Quotes

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

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
History in general is therefore the development of Spirit in Time, as Nature is the development of the Idea is Space.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
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.

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

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
The History of the World is nothing but the development of the Idea of Freedom.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
On the stage on which we are observing it, — Universal History — Spirit displays itself in its most concrete reality.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
In the case of various kinds of knowledge, we find that what in former days occupied the energies of men of mature mental ability sinks to the level of information, exercises, and even pastimes for children; and in this educational progress we can see the history of the world's culture delineated in faint outline.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
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.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
America is therefore the land of the future, where, in the ages that lie before us, the burden of the World's History shall reveal itself.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
What experience and history teach is this — that nations and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
History, is a conscious, self-meditating process — Spirit emptied out into Time; but this externalization, this kenosis, is equally an externalization of itself; the negative is the negative of itself.... Thus absorbed in itself, it is sunk in the night of its self-consciousness; but in that night its vanished outer existence is perserved, and this transformed existence — the former one, but now reborn of the Spirit's knowledge — is the new existence, a new world and a new shape of Spirit.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Regarding History as the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of States, and the virtue of individuals have been victimized--the question involuntarily arises--to what principle, to what final aim these enormous sacrifices have been offered.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
The first glance at History convinces us that the actions of men proceed from their needs, their passions, their characters and talents; and impresses us with the belief that such needs, passions and interests are the sole spring of actions.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
In history an additional result is commonly produced by human actions beyond that which they aim at and obtain -- that which they immediately recognize and desire. They gratify their own interest; but something further is thereby accomplished, latent in the actions in question, though not present to their consciousness, and not included in their design.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel