Immanuel Kant Quotes - Page 4

Freedom can never be comprehended, nor even can insight into it be gained.

When I could have used a wife, I could not support one; and when I could support one, I no longer needed any

God, freedom, and immortality are untenable in the light of pure reason.

Perhaps a revolution can overthrow autocratic despotism and profiteering or power-grabbing oppression, but it can never truly reform a manner of thinking; instead, new prejudices, just like the old ones they replace, will serve as a leash for the great unthinking mass.

Procrastination is hardly more evil than grasping impatience.

Maximum individuality within maximum community

It is not God's will merely that we should be happy, but that we should make ourselves happy

If a man is often the subject of conversation he soon becomes the subject of criticism.

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

Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination.

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.

The busier we are, the more acutely we feel that we live, the more conscious we are of life.

Riches ennoble a man's circumstances, but not himself.

All human knowledge begins with intuitions, proceeds from thence to concepts, and ends with ideas.

The nice thing about living in a small town is that when you don't know what you're doing, someone else does.

The possession of power inevitably spoils the free use of reason.

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].

Happiness, though an indefinite concept, is the goal of all rational beings

Art is purposiveness without purpose.

Seek not the favor of the multitude; it is seldom got by honest and lawful means. But seek the testimony of few; and number not voices, but weigh them.

The enjoyment of power inevitably corrupts the judgment of reason, and perverts its liberty.

After death the soul possesses self-consciousness, otherwise, it would be the subject of spiritual death, which has already been disproved. With this self-consciousness necessarily remains personality and the consciousness of personal identity.

All the interests of my reason, speculative as well as practical, combine in the three following questions: 1. What can I know? 2. What ought I to do? 3. What may I hope?

Suicide is not abominable because God prohibits it; God prohibits it because it is abominable.

If I am to constrain you by any law, it must be one by which I am also bound.