Immanuel Kant Quotes

• Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.

  Immanuel Kant

  Immanuel Kant, Paul Guyer (1998). “Critique of Pure Reason”, p.50, Cambridge University Press

  1290

• Heaven has given human beings three things to balance the odds of life: hope, sleep, and laughter.

  Immanuel Kant

  Laughter  

  2754

• cruelty to animals is contrary to man's duty to himself, because it deadens in him the feeling of sympathy for their sufferings, and thus a natural tendency that is very useful to morality in relation to other human beings is weakened.

  Immanuel Kant

  2523

• We ourselves introduce that order and regularity in the appearance which we entitle "nature". We could never find them in appearances had we not ourselves, by the nature of our own mind, originally set them there.

  Immanuel Kant

  4978

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

  Immanuel Kant

  3154

• The light dove, cleaving the air in her free flight, and feeling its resistance, might imagine that its flight would be still easier in empty space.

  Immanuel Kant

  Immanuel Kant (1995). “Kant”, Element Books

  4537

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

  Immanuel Kant

  2487

• 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.

  Immanuel Kant

  Immanuel Kant (1932). “Perpetual peace”

  854

• Manners or etiquette ('accessibility, affability, politeness, refinement, propriety, courtesy, and ingratiating and captivating behavior') call for no large measure of moral determination and cannot, therefore, be reckoned as virtues. Even though manners are no virtues, they are a means of developing virtue.... The more we refine the crude elements in our nature, the more we improve our humanity and the more capable it grows of feeling the driving force of virtuous principles.

  Immanuel Kant

  4262

• It is therefore correct to say that the senses do not err — not because they always judge rightly, but because they do not judge at all.

  Immanuel Kant

  Immanuel Kant (1985). “The Philosophy of Material Nature”, Hackett Publishing

  4411

• He who has made great moral progress ceases to pray

  Immanuel Kant

  1607

• Duty is the necessity to act out of reverence for the law.

  Immanuel Kant

  Immanuel Kant (2013). “Moral Law: Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals”, p.8, Routledge

  4266

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

  Immanuel Kant

  Immanuel Kant (1963). “Lectures on ethics”

  958

• If man makes himself a worm he must not complain when he is trodden on.

  Immanuel Kant

  2446

• The two great dividers are religion and LANGUAGE

  Immanuel Kant

  3963

• Dare to know! Have the courage to use your own intelligence!

  Immanuel Kant

  1633

• If, like Hume, I had all manner of adornment in my power, I would still have reservations about using them. It is true that some readers will be scared off by dryness. But isn't it necessary to scare off some if in their case the matter would end up in bad hands?

  Immanuel Kant

  Immanuel Kant (2005). “Notes and Fragments”, p.207, Cambridge University Press

  5042

• The hand is the visible part of the brain.

  Immanuel Kant

  2069

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

  Immanuel Kant

  3202

• 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.

  Immanuel Kant

  Immanuel Kant (1887). “The Philosophy of Law: An Exposition of the Fundamental Principles of Jurisprudence as the Science of Right”, p.230, The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.

  2187

• The means employed by Nature to bring about the development of all the capacities of men is their antagonism in society, so far as this is, in the end, the cause of a lawful order among men.

  Immanuel Kant

  Immanuel Kant (1986). “Philosophical Writings”, Continuum

  720

• Art does not want the representation of a beautiful thing, but the representation of something beautiful.

  Immanuel Kant

  2460

• Genius is the ability to independently arrive at and understand concepts that would normally have to be taught by another person.

  Immanuel Kant

  1225

• If we knew that god exists, such knowledge would make morality impossible. For, if we acted morally from fear or fright, or confident of a reward, then this would not be moral. It would be enlightened selfishness.

  Immanuel Kant

  3520

• Only the descent into the hell of self-knowledge can pave the way to godliness.

  Immanuel Kant

  "The Metaphysics of Morals". Book by Immanuel Kant, Ak 6:441, 1797.

  1864

• 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

  "Answering the Question: What is Enlightenment?". Essay by Immanuel Kant, 1784.

  732

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

  Immanuel Kant

  4680

• The sceptics, a kind of nomads, despising all settled culture of the land, broke up from time to time all civil society. Fortunately their number was small, and they could not prevent the old settlers from returning to cultivate the ground afresh, though without any fixed plan or agreement.

  Immanuel Kant

  Immanuel Kant (1915). “Critique of Pure Reason: In Commemoration of the Centenary of Its First Publication”

  2203

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

  Immanuel Kant

  4059

• Nature, when left to universal laws, tends to produce regularity out of chaos.

  Immanuel Kant

  Immanuel Kant, David Walford, Ralf Meerbote (2003). “Theoretical Philosophy, 1755-1770”, p.191, Cambridge University Press

  1384

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