Immanuel Kant Quotes
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The wish to talk to God is absurd. We cannot talk to one we cannot comprehend - and we cannot comprehend God; we can only believe in Him. The uses of prayer are thus only subjective.
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Metaphysics has as the proper object of its enquiries three ideas only: God, freedom, and immortality.
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All false art, all vain wisdom, lasts its time but finally destroys itself, and its highest culture is also the epoch of its decay.
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If once a man has come to the idea of a service which is not purely moral, but is ...... In the kingdom of ends everything has either a price or a dignity. What has a price can be replaced by something else as its equivalent; what on the other hand is raised above all price and therefore admits of no equivalent has a dignity.
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The human heart refuses To believe in a universe Without a purpose.
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The death of dogma is the birth of morality.
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Feminine traits are called weaknesses. People joke about them; fools ridicule them; but reasonable persons see very well that those traits are just the tools for the management of men, and for the use of men for female designs.
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Standing armies shall in time be totally abolished.
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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.
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It is precisely in knowing its limits that philosophy consists.
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Laziness and cowardice explain why so many men. . . remain under a life-long tutelage and why it is so easy for some men to set themselves up as the guardians of all the rest. . . If I have a book which understands for me, a pastor who has a conscience for me, a doctor who decides my diet, I need not trouble myself. If I am willing to pay, I need not think. Others will do it for me.
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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.
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Freedom is that faculty that enlarges the usefulness of all other faculties.
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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.
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An action is essentially good if the motive of the agent be good, regardless of the consequences.
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All appearances are real and negatio; sophistical: All reality must be sensation.
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That Logic has advanced in this sure course, even from the earliest times, is apparent from the fact that, since Aristotle, it has been unable to advance a step, and thus to all appearance has reached its completion.
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Innocence is indeed a glorious thing; but, unfortunately, it does not keep very well and is easily led astray.
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Reason must approach nature with the view, indeed, of receiving information from it, not, however, in the character of a pupil, who listens to all that his master chooses to tell him, but in that of a judge, who compels the witnesses to reply to those questions which he himself thinks fit to propose. To this single idea must the revolution be ascribed, by which, after groping in the dark for so many centuries, natural science was at length conducted into the path of certain progress.
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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).
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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.
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Is it reasonable to assume a purposiveness in all the parts of nature and to deny it to the whole?
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The public use of a man's reason must be free at all times, and this alone can bring enlightenment among men...
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The bad thing of war is, that it makes more evil people than it can take away.