Whatever happens, every individual is a child of his time; so philosophy too is its own time apprehended in thoughts. It is just as absurd to fancy that a philosophy can transcend its contemporary world as it is to fancy that an individual can overleap his own age, jump over Rhodes.

The True is the whole. But the whole is nothing other than the essence consummating itself through its development. Of the Absolute it must be said that it is essentially a result, that only in the end is it what it truly is; and that precisely in this consists its nature, viz. to be actual, subject, the spontaneous becoming of itself.

I have the courage to be mistaken.

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.

The Catholics had been in the position of oppressors, and the Protestants of the oppressed

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

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.