Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Quotes about Passion

If we go on to cast a look at the fate of these World-Historical persons, whose vocation it was to be the agents of the World-Spirit, we shall find it to have been no happy one. They attained no calm enjoyment; their

If we go on to cast a look at the fate of these World-Historical persons, whose vocation it was to be the agents of the World-Spirit, we shall find it to have been no happy one. They attained no calm enjoyment; their whole life was labour and trouble; their whole nature was nought else but their master—passion. When their object is attained they fall off like empty hulls from the kernel. They die early, like Alexander; they are murdered, like Caesar.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Fall, Passion, Fate

"Reading Hegel: The Introductions".

Nothing great has been and nothing great can be accomplished without passion. It is only a dead, too often, indeed, a hypocriticalmoralizing which inveighs against the form of passion as such.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Passion, Form, Accomplished

The first glance at History convinces us that the actions of men proceed from their needs, their passions, their characters and talents; and impresses us with the belief that such needs, passions and interests are the sole spring of actions.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Spring, Character, Passion

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1861). “Lectures on the Philosophy of History”, p.21

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.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Passion, Individuality, Desire

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Aakash Singh, Rimina Mohapatra (2008). “Reading Hegel: The Introductions”, p.124, re.press