Quotables 8 May 2024: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) reflecting on the true value - or lack thereof - of public opinion, and the persistent collective failure to glean lessons from history

Portrait of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, circa 1831. Public domain.

Food for thought for the day from the esteemed German philosopher, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, born in Stuttgart:

‘To be independent of public opinion is the first formal condition of achieving anything great or rational whether in life or in science’. - from ‘Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts’ (1820/1821).

‘What experience and history teach is this - that nations and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it’. - from ‘Lectures on the Philosophy of History’, published 1832.

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