The nature of finite things is to have the seed of their passing-away as their essential being: the hour of their birth is the hour of their death.

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.

What is rational is actual and what is actual is rational

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.

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

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.

An individual piece only has meaning when it is seen as part of the whole.