The State is the Divine idea as it exists on Earth.

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

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

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 assert then that nothing has been accomplished without interest on the part of the actors; and — if interest be called passion, inasmuch as the whole individuality, to the neglect of all other actual or possible interests and claims, is devoted to an object with every fibre of volition, concentrating all its desires and powers upon it — we may affirm absolutely that nothing great in the World has been accomplished without passion.

God is, as it were, the sewer into which all contradictions flow.

What experience and history teach is this - that nations and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on any lessons they might have drawn from it. Variant: What experience and history teach is this - that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.