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It is precisely in knowing its limits that philosophy consists.
Immanuel Kant -
Among all nations, through the darkest polytheism glimmer some faint sparks of monotheism.
Immanuel Kant
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One cannot avoid a certain feeling of disgust, when one observes the actions of man displayed on the great stage of the world. Wisdom is manifested by individuals here and there; but the web of human history as a whole appears to be woven from folly and childish vanity, often, too, from puerile wickedness and love of destruction: with the result that at the end one is puzzled to know what idea to form of our species which prides itself so much on its advantages.
Immanuel Kant -
Enlightenment is man's leaving his self-caused immaturity. Immaturity is the incapacity to use one's intelligence without the guidance of another. Such immaturity is self-caused if it is not caused by lack of intelligence, but by lack of determination and courage to use one's intelligence without being guided by another. Sapere Aude! Have the courage to use your own intelligence! is therefore the motto of the enlightenment.
Immanuel Kant -
Our knowledge springs from two fundamental sources of the mind; the first is the capacity of receiving representations (receptivity for impressions), the second is the power of knowing an object through these representations (spontaneity [in the production] of concepts).
Immanuel Kant -
The nice thing about living in a small town is that when you don't know what you're doing, someone else does.
Immanuel Kant -
The human heart refuses To believe in a universe Without a purpose.
Immanuel Kant -
There is needed, no doubt, a body of servants (ministerium) of the invisible church, but not officials (officiales), in other words, teachers but not dignitaries, because in the rational religion of every individual there does not yet exist a church as a universal union (omnitudo collectiva).
Immanuel Kant
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The inscrutable wisdom through which we exist is not less worthy of veneration in respect to what it denies us than in respect to what it has granted.
Immanuel Kant -
Innocence is indeed a glorious thing; but, unfortunately, it does not keep very well and is easily led astray.
Immanuel Kant -
Reason can never prove the existence of God.
Immanuel Kant -
There will always be some people who think for themselves, even among the self-appointed guardians of the great mass who, after having thrown off the yoke of immaturity themselves, will spread about them the spirit of a reasonable estimate of their own value and of the need for every man to think for himself.
Immanuel Kant -
If I am to constrain you by any law, it must be one by which I am also bound.
Immanuel Kant -
There must be a seed of every good thing in the character of men, otherwise no one can bring it out. Lacking that, analogous motives, honor, etc., are substituted. Parents are in the habit of looking out for the inclinations, for the talents and dexterity, perhaps for the disposition of their children, and not at all for their heart or character.
Immanuel Kant
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Christianity possesses the great advantage over Judaism of being represented as coming from the mouth of the first Teacher not as a statutory but as a moral religion, and as thus entering into the closest relation with reason so that, through reason, it was able of itself, without historical learning, to be spread at all times and among all peoples with the greatest trustworthiness.
Immanuel Kant -
The function of the true state is to impose the minimum restrictions and safeguard the maximum liberties of the people, and it never regards the person as a thing.
Immanuel Kant -
Humanity is at its greatest perfection in the race of the whites.
Immanuel Kant -
Good and strong will. Mechanism must precede science (learning). Also in morals and religion? Too much discipline makes one narrow and kills proficiency. Politeness belongs, not to discipline, but to polish, and thus comes last.
Immanuel Kant -
Philosophical knowledge is the knowledge gained by reason from concepts; mathematical knowledge is the knowledge gained by reason from the construction of concepts.
Immanuel Kant -
The history of mankind can be seen, in the large, as the realization of Nature’s secret plan to bring forth a perfectly constituted state as the only condition in which the capacities of mankind can be fully developed, and also bring forth that external relation among states which is perfectly adequate to this end.
Immanuel Kant
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The death of dogma is the birth of morality.
Immanuel Kant -
Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity.
Immanuel Kant -
Man relates to material things through direct insight rather than reason.
Immanuel Kant -
Religion is too important a matter to its devotees to be a subject of ridicule. If they indulge in absurdities, they are to be pitied rather than ridiculed.
Immanuel Kant