Rulers, Statesmen, Nations, are wont to be emphatically commended to the teaching which experience offers in history. But what experience and history teach is this - that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it. Each period is involved in such peculiar circumstances, exhibits a condition of things so strictly idiosyncratic, that its conduct must be regulated by considerations connected with itself, and itself alone.

The heart is everywhere, and each part of the organism is only the specialized force of the heart itself.

Beauty is merely the Spiritual making itself known sensuously.

What is rational is actual and what is actual is rational

To him who looks at the world rationally the world looks rationally back.

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

In the case of all other sciences, arts, skills, and crafts, everyone is convinced that a complex and laborious programme of learning and practice is necessary for competence. Yet when it comes to philosophy, there seems to be a currently prevailing prejudice to the effect that, although not everyone who has eyes and fingers, and is given leather and last, is at once in a position to make shoes, everyone nevertheless immediately understands how to philosophize.