UPSC Express

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

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

An idea is always a generalization, and generalization is a property of thinking. To generalize means to think.

Education is the art of making man ethical.

Genuine tragedies in the world are not conflicts between right and wrong. They are conflicts between two rights.

What experience and history teaches us is that people and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.

Truth in philosophy means that concept and external reality correspond.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Too fair to worship, too divine to love.

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

Mere goodness can achieve little against the power of nature.

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.

World history is a court of judgment.

The valour that struggles is better than the weakness that endures.

The learner always begins by finding fault, but the scholar sees the positive merit in everything.

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.

It is a matter of perfect indifference where a thing originated; the only question is: “Is it true in and for itself?”