I saw the Emperor – this world-soul – riding out of the city on reconnaissance. The universal will is prior to them, it is absolutely there for them – they are in no way immediately the same. Yet on the other hand the universal will is primary and the essence – and individuals have to make themselves into the universal will through the negation of their own will, externalization and cultivation. It has first to constitute itself as a universal will, out of the will of individuals, so that this appears as the principle and element. The universal will has to gather itself into this unity. The activity of the universal is a unity. The universal will is the will as that of all and each, but as will it is simply this Self alone. This strength, however, is effective only insofar as it is united into a unity, only as will. And the strength that each one has in his being-recognized is that of a people.

It is of insurmountable strength against the individual, and is his necessity and the power oppressing him.

The universal is a people, a group of individuals in general, an existent whole, the universal force. The wealthy man is directly compelled to modify his relation of mastery, and even others’ distrust for it, by permitting a more general participation in it. Spirit is the “nature” of individuals, their immediate substance, and its movement and necessity it is as much the personal consciousness in their existence as it is their pure consciousness, their life, their actuality. The spoken word unites the objectivity of the corporeal sign with the subjectivity of gesture, the articulation of the latter with the self-awareness of the former. This ideal and rational middle term is speech, the tool of reason, the child of intelligent beings. The master is in possession of a surplus of what is physically necessary the servant lacks it, and indeed in such a way that the surplus and the lack of it are not accidental aspects but the indifference of necessary needs. To this extent the tool is the persistent norm of labour. Anyone can make a similar tool and work with it. In the tool the subjectivity of labour is raised to something universal. But if this identity is to be actually known, it must be thought as a made adequacy. Knowledge of the Idea of the absolute ethical order depends entirely on the establishment of perfect adequacy between intuition and concept, because the Idea itself is nothing other than the identity of the two. The cultivation of the spirit of the people as a whole requires in addition the respective contributions of folk religion and political institutions. The improvement of individual morality is a matter involving one’s private religion, one’s parents, one’s personal efforts, and one’s individual situation. The spirit of a nation is reflected in its history, its religion, and the degree of its political freedom. the only genuine source of Hegel quotes on the internet, where you can verify the quote and read it in its context. 150 quotes from Hegel, linked to the context.

Quotes about the end of the sun