Friedrich Nietzsche vs Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel on Knowledge

“Postcard to Franz Overbeck , Sils-Maria (30 July 1881), tr. Walter Kaufmann , The Portable Nietzsche (1954)”

I am utterly amazed, utterly enchanted! I have a precursor , and what a precursor! I hardly knew Spinoza : that I should have turned to him just now , was inspired by "instinct." Not only is his overtendency like mine—namely to make all knowledge the most powerful affect — but in five main points of his doctrine I recognize myself; this most unusual and loneliest thinker is closest to me precisely

“Against that positivism which stops before phenomena, saying "there are only facts," I should say: no, it is precisely facts that do not exist, only interpretations.”

Notebooks (Late 1886 – Spring 1887) | Popular usage: "There are no facts, only interpretations.

“Notebooks (Late 1886 – Spring 1887)”

Against that positivism which stops before phenomena, saying "there are only facts," I should say: no, it is precisely facts that do not exist, only interpretations.

“Popular usage: "There are no facts, only interpretations.”

Against that positivism which stops before phenomena, saying "there are only facts," I should say: no, it is precisely facts that do not exist, only interpretations.

“In Germany there is much complaining about my "eccentricities." But since it is not known where my center is, it won't be easy to find out where or when I have thus far been "eccentric." That I was a philologist , for example, meant that I was outside my center (which fortunately does not mean that I was a poor philologist). Likewise, I now regard my having been a Wagnerian as eccentric. It was a highly dangerous experiment; now that I know it did not ruin me, I also know what significance it had for me — it was the most severe test of my character.”

Letter to Carl Fuchs (14 December 1887)

“The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk.”

Only one word more concerning the desire to teach the world what it ought to be. For such a purpose philosophy at least always comes too late. Philosophy, as the thought of the world, does not appear until reality has completed its formative process, and made itself ready. History thus corroborates the teaching of the conception that only in the maturity of reality does the ideal appear as counter

“We learn from history that we do not learn from history.”

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.

“Reading the morning newspaper is the realist's morning prayer.”

Miscellaneous writings of G.W.F. Hegel , translation by Jon Bartley Stewart, Northwestern University Press, 2002, page 247.

“An idea is always a generalization, and generalization is a property of thinking.”

Jede Vorstellung ist eine Verallgemeinerung, und diese gehört dem Denken an. Etwas allgemein machen, heißt, es denken. ("Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts oder Naturrecht und Staatswissenschaft im Grundrisse", Berlin, 1833, p. 35)

“To be aware of limitations is already to be beyond them.”

As quoted in Inwardness and Existence (1989) by Walter A. Davis, p. 18