Immanuel Kant Quotes

Rules for Happiness: something to do, someone to love, something to hope for.

If you punish a child for being naughty, and reward him for being good, he will do right merely for the sake of the reward; and when he goes out into the world and finds that goodness is not always rewarded, nor wickedness always punished, he will grow into a man who only thinks about how he may get on in the world, and does right or wrong according as he finds advantage to himself.

We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.

Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.

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.

Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end.

Three things tell a man: his eyes, his friends and his favorite quotes

You only know me as you see me, not as I actually am

The greatest human quest is to know what one must do in order to become a human being.

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

Do the right thing because it is right.

Democracy is necessarily despotism, as it establishes an executive power contrary to the general will; all being able to decide against one whose opinion may differ, the will of all is therefore not that of all: which is contradictory and opposite to liberty.

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.

But a lie is a lie, and in itself intrinsically evil, whether it be told with good or bad intents.

We are not rich by what we possess but by what we can do without.

A single line in the Bible has consoled me more than all the books I ever read besides.

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.

There can be no doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience.

The only thing permanent is change.

Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play.

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.

Every man is to be respected as an absolute end in himself; and it is a crime against the dignity that belongs to him as a human being, to use him as a mere means for some external purpose.

Look closely. The beautiful may be small.

I had therefore to remove knowledge, in order to make room for belief.

All perception is colored by emotion.

Give a man everything he wants and at that moment everything is not everything

Two things awe me most, the starry sky above me and the moral law within me.

Morality is not properly the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.

Always regard every man as an end in himself, and never use him merely as a means to your ends [i.e., respect that each person has a life and purpose that is their own; do not treat people as objects to be exploited].

For peace to reign on Earth, humans must evolve into new beings who have learned to see the whole first.

Space and time are the framework within which the mind is constrained to construct its experience of reality.

Live your life as though your every act were to become a universal law.

The wise man can change his mind; the stubborn one, never.

Most men use their knowledge only under guidance from others because they lack the courage to think independently using their own reasoning abilities. It takes intellectual daring to discover the truth.

He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.

THERE ARE TWO THINGS that don't have to mean anything, one is music and the other is laughter.

It is never too late to become reasonable and wise.

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.

A categorical imperative would be one which represented an action as objectively necessary in itself, without reference to any other purpose.

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.

The human heart refuses To believe in a universe Without a purpose.

In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so.

The two great dividers are religion and LANGUAGE

Patience is the strength of the weak, impatience is the weakness of the strong.

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

Immaturity is the incapacity to use one's intelligence without the guidance of another.

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... Morality is not properly the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.

Ours is an age of criticism, to which everything must be subjected. The sacredness of religion, and the authority of legislation, are by many regarded as grounds for exemption from the examination by this tribunal, But, if they are exempted, and cannot lay claim to sincere respect, which reason accords only to that which has stood the test of a free and public examination.

There is nothing higher than reason.

If an offender has committed murder, he must die. In this case, no possible substitute can satisfy justice. For there is no parallel between death and even the most miserable life, so that there is no equality of crime and retribution unless the perpetrator is judicially put to death.