Immanuel Kant Quotes

One who makes himself a worm cannot complain afterwards if people step on him.

3456

Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.

3382

But only he who, himself enlightened, is not afraid of shadows.

1231

Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.

3496

Without man and his potential for moral progress, the whole of reality would be a mere wilderness, a thing in vain, and have no final purpose.

2962

Settle, for sure and universally, what conduct will promote the happiness of a rational being.

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The death of dogma is the birth of morality.

2971

I had to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith.

1182

All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.

2599

But, above all, it will confer an inestimable benefit on morality and religion, by showing that all the objections urged against them may be silenced for ever by the Socratic method, that is to say, by proving the ignorance of the objector.

4917

In every department of physical science there is only so much science, properly so-called, as there is mathematics.

2613

Woman wants control, man self-control .

2992

Une politique valable ne peut faire un pas sans rendre hommage à la morale.

4485

In all judgements by which we describe anything as beautiful, we allow no one to be of another opinion.

2967

It is an empirical judgement [to say] that I perceive and judge an object with pleasure. But it is an a priori judgement [to say] that I find it beautiful, i.e. I attribute this satisfaction necessarily to every one.

1162

War seems to be ingrained in human nature, and even to be regarded as something noble to which man is inspired by his love of honor, without selfish motives.

1838

Only the descent into the hell of self-knowledge can pave the way to godliness.

3159

To be is to do.

3762

Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end.

2434

Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.

4872

From the crooked timber of humanity, a straight board cannot be hewn.

4735

If we suppose that mankind never can or will be in a better condition, it seems impossible to justify by any kind of theodicy the mere fact that such a race of corrupt beings could have been created on earth at all.

1808

Treat people as an end, and never as a means to an end

3343

Seek not the favor of the multitude; it is seldom got by honest and lawful means. But seek the testimony of few; and number not voices, but weigh them.

1149

The touchstone of everything that can be concluded as a law for a people lies in the question whether the people could have imposed such a law on itself.

1305

if adversity and hopeless grief have quite taken away the taste for life; if an unfortunate man, strong of soul and more indignant about his fate than despondent or dejected, wishes for death and yet preserves his life without loving it, not from inclination or fear but from duty, then his maxim has moral content.

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