134 quotes
When I treat a man contemptuously, I can inspire him with no practical desire to appreciate my grounds of truth. When I treat any one as worthless, I can inspire him with no desire to do right.
The Educational Theory of Immanuel Kant (1904)
Freedom is the alone unoriginated birthright of man, and belongs to him by force of his humanity; and is independence on the will and co-action of every other in so far as this consists with every other person’s freedom.
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.
Critique of Practical Reason (1788)
Psychologists have hitherto failed to realize that imagination is a necessary ingredient of perception itself.
Critique of Pure Reason (1781)
I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith.
Critique of Pure Reason (1781)
Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.
The deceiver is really the fool.
Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (1798)
In man (as the only rational creature on earth) those natural capacities which are directed to the use of his reason are to be fully developed only in the race, not in the individual.
Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View (1784)
Through failures one becomes intelligent; but the one who has trained himself in this subject so that he can make others wise through their own failures, has used his intelligence. Ignorance is not stupidity.
Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (1798)
Whatever concept one may hold, from a metaphysical point of view, concerning the freedom of the will, certainly its appearances, which are human actions, like every other natural event are determined by universal laws.
Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View (1784)
I ought never to act except in such a way that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law.
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785)
Whatever, over and above good life-conduct, man fancies that he can do to become well-pleasing to God is mere religious delusion and counterfeit worship of God.
Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone (1793)
A spurious axiom of the first class is: Whatever is, is somewhere and sometime.
Kant's Inaugural Dissertation (1770)
The concept of space is not abstracted from external sensations.
Kant's Inaugural Dissertation (1770)
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.
Critique of Pure Reason (1781)
The problem of establishing a perfect civic constitution is dependent upon the problem of a lawful external relation among states and cannot be solved without a solution of the latter problem.
Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View (1784)
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.
The guidelines for achieving wisdom consist of three leading maxims: 1) Think for yourself; 2) (in communication with other people) Put yourself in the place of the other person; 3) Always think by remaining faithful to your own self.
Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (1798)
...happiness is not an ideal of reason but of imagination, resting solely on empirical grounds.
Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Ethics (1785)
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.
Critique of Pure Reason (1781)