Immanuel Kant Quotes
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Happiness, though an indefinite concept, is the goal of all rational beings.
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Men will not understand … that when they fulfil their duties to men, they fulfil thereby God's commandments; that they are consequently always in the service of God, as long as their actions are moral, and that it is absolutely impossible to serve God otherwise.
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I shall never forget my mother, for it was she who planted and nurtured the first seeds of good within me. She opened my heart to the lasting impressions of nature; she awakened my understanding and extended my horizon and her percepts exerted an everlasting influence upon the course of my life.
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[Aristotle formal logic thus far (1787)] has not been able to advance a single step, and hence is to all appearances closed and completed.
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Reason should investigate its own parameters before declaring its omniscience.
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A man who has tasted with profound enjoyment the pleasure of agreeable society will eat with a greater appetite than he who rode horseback for two hours. An amusing lecture is as useful for health as the exercise of the body.
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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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There are three juridical attributes that inseparably belong to the citizen by right.
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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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Time is not an empirical concept. For neither co-existence nor succession would be perceived by us, if the representation of time did not exist as a foundation a priori.
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The universal and lasting establishment of peace constitutes not merely a part, but the whole final purpose and end of the science of right as viewed within the limits of reason.
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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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Art does not want the representation of a beautiful thing, but the representation of something beautiful.
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God, freedom, and immortality are untenable in the light of pure reason.
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But only he who, himself enlightened, is not afraid of shadows.
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Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance. Dare to know!
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The infinitude of creation is great enough to make a world, or a Milky Way of worlds, look in comparison with it what a flower or an insect does in comparison with the Earth.
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Philosophical knowledge is the knowledge gained by reason from concepts; mathematical knowledge is the knowledge gained by reason from the construction of concepts.
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The existence of the Bible is the greatest blessing which humanity ever experienced.
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It is the Land of Truth (enchanted name!), surrounded by a wide and stormy ocean, the true home of illusion, where many a fog bank and ice, that soon melts away, tempt us to believe in new lands, while constantly deceiving the adventurous mariner with vain hopes, and involving him in adventures which he can never leave, yet never bring to an end.
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The enjoyment of power inevitably corrupts the judgment of reason, and perverts its liberty.
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Life is the faculty of spontaneous activity, the awareness that we have powers.
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All appearances have a determinate magnitude (the relation of which to another assignable). The infinite does not appear as such, likewise not the simple. For the appearances are included between two boundaries (points) and are thus themselves determinate magnitudes.
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There can be no doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience.