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There is something splendid about innocence; but what is bad about it, in turn, is that it cannot protect itself very well and is easily seduced.
Immanuel Kant -
In the metaphysical elements of aesthetics the various nonmoral feelings are to be made use of; in the elements of moral metaphysics the various moral feelings of men, according to the differences in sex, age, education, and government, of races and climates, are to be employed.
Immanuel Kant
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Two things strike me dumb: the infinite starry heavens, and the sense of right and wrong in man.
Immanuel Kant -
Thus our duties to animals are indirectly duties to humanity.
Immanuel Kant -
Procrastination is hardly more evil than grasping impatience.
Immanuel Kant -
In the natural state no concept of God can arise, and the false one which one makes for himself is harmful. Hence the theory of natural religion can be true only where there is no science; therefore it cannot bind all men together.
Immanuel Kant -
Human reason has this peculiar fate that in one species of its knowledge it is burdened by questions which, as prescribed by the very nature of reason itself, it is not able to ignore, but which, as transcending all its powers, it is also not able to answer.
Immanuel Kant -
Great minds think for themselves.
Immanuel Kant
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Things which we see are not by themselves what we see ... It remains completely unknown to us what the objects may be by themselves and apart from the receptivity of our senses. We know nothing but our manner of perceiving them.
Immanuel Kant -
But a lie is a lie, and in itself intrinsically evil, whether it be told with good or bad intents.
Immanuel Kant -
The evil effect of science upon men is principally this, that by far the greatest number of those who wish to display a knowledge of it accomplish no improvement at all of the understanding, but only a perversity of it, not to mention that it serves most of them as a tool of vanity.
Immanuel Kant -
Im Reiche der Zwecke hat alles entweder einen Preis oder eine Würde. Was einen Preis hat, an dessen Stelle kann auch etwas anderes als Äquivalent gesetzt werden; was dagegen über allen Preis erhaben ist, mithin kein Äquivalent verstattet, das hat eine Würde.
Immanuel Kant -
From such crooked wood as that which man is made of, nothing straight can be fashioned.
Immanuel Kant -
I do not, therefore, need any penetrating acuteness to see what I have to do in order that my volition be morally good. Inexperienced in the course of the world, incapable of being prepared for whatever might come to pass in it, I ask myself only: can you also will that your maxim become a universal law?
Immanuel Kant
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The greatest human quest is to know what one must do in order to become a human being.
Immanuel Kant -
All our knowledge begins with the senses...
Immanuel Kant -
Natural science is throughout either a pure or an applied doctrine of motion.
Immanuel Kant -
Metaphysics has as the proper object of its enquiries three ideas only: God, freedom, and immortality.
Immanuel Kant -
This proof can at most, therefore, demonstrate the existence of an architect of the world, whose efforts are limited by the capabilities of the material with which he works, but not of a creator of the world, to whom all things are subject.
Immanuel Kant -
To be beneficent when we can is a duty; and besides this, there are many minds so sympathetically constituted that, without any other motive of vanity or self-interest, they find a pleasure in spreading joy around them, and can take delight in the satisfaction of others so far as it is their own work. But I maintain that in such a case an action of this kind, however proper, however amiable it may be, has nevertheless no true moral worth, but is on a level with other inclinations. . . . For the maxim lacks the moral import, namely, that such actions be done from duty, not from inclination.
Immanuel Kant
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It is precisely in knowing its limits that philosophy consists.
Immanuel Kant -
Is it reasonable to assume a purposiveness in all the parts of nature and to deny it to the whole?
Immanuel Kant -
When the man governed by self-interest, the god of this world, does not renounce it but merely refines it by the use of reason and extends it beyond the constricting boundary of the present, he is represented (Luke XVI, 3-9) as one who, in his very person as servant, defrauds his master self- interest and wins from him sacrifices in behalf of 'duty.'
Immanuel Kant -
No-one can compel me to be happy in accordance with his conception of the welfare of others, for each may seek his happiness in whatever way he sees fit, so long as he does not infringe upon the freedom of others to pursue a similar end which can be reconciled with the freedom of everyone else within a workable general law ? i.e. he must accord to others the same right as he enjoys himself.
Immanuel Kant