When individuals and nations have once got in their heads the abstract concept of full-blown liberty, there is nothing like it in its uncontrollable strength.
Interpretation
The concept of complete freedom is incredibly powerful and can drive individuals and nations to act in profound ways.
Hegel expresses the idea that once the concept of absolute liberty is fully understood and accepted by people and societies, it unleashes a formidable force that is difficult to contain or control. This notion of liberty transcends ordinary desires and aspirations, becoming a driving force that can lead to significant societal transformations and movements.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about civil rights movements.
The true courage of civilized nations is readiness for sacrifice in the service of the state, so that the individual counts as only one amongst many. The important thing here is not personal mettle but aligning oneself with the universal.
The East knew and to the present day knows only that One is Free; the Greek and the Roman world, that some are free; the German World knows that All are free. The first political form therefore which we observe in History, is Despotism, the second Democracy and Aristocracy, the third, Monarchy.
Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion.
Every idea, extended into infinity, becomes its own opposite.
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.
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.
That is what worship is all about. It is the glad shout of praise that arises to God the creator and God the rescuer from the creation that recognizes its maker, the creation that acknowledges the triumph of Jesus the Lamb. That is the worship that is going on in heaven, in God's dimension, all the time. The question we ought to be asking is how best we might join in.
The good Bishop of Assisi expressed a sort of horror at the hard life which the Little Brothers lived at the Portiuncula, without comforts, without possessions, eating anything they could get and sleeping anyhow on the ground. St. Francis answered him with that curious and almost stunning shrewdness which the unworldly can sometimes wield like a club of stone. He said, 'If we had any possessions, we should need weapons and laws to defend them.
All will come through, not a single soul (jiva) shall be lost.
I don't believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.
But when the dawn will come, of our emancipation, from the fear of bondage and the bondage of fear, why, that is a secret.
The impossibility of outraging nature is the greatest anguish man can know.
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