134 quotes
Percepts and phenomena which precedes the logical use of the intellect is called appearance, while the reflex knowledge originating from several appearances compared by the intellect is called experience.
Kant's Inaugural Dissertation (1770)
Abbot Terrasson tells us that if the size of a book were measured not by the number of its pages but by the time required to understand it, then we could say about many books that they would be much shorter were they not so short.
Critique of Pure Reason (1781)
All natural philosophers, who wished to proceed mathematically in their work, have hence invariably (although unknown to themselves) made use of metaphysical principles, and must make use of such, it matters not how energetically they may otherwise repudiate any claim of metaphysics on their science.
Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (1786)
[W]hat alone has value is the use to which life is put and the end to which it is directed. The value of life has to be created by man, it cannot be obtained through luck but only through wisdom. He who is anxiously concerned over losing his life will never enjoy life.
Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (1798)
Through laziness and cowardice a large part of mankind, even after nature has freed them from alien guidance, gladly remain immature. It is because of laziness and cowardice that it is so easy for others to usurp the role of guardians. It is so comfortable to be a minor!
What is Enlightenment? (1784)
It is so easy to be immature. If I have a book to serve as my understanding, a pastor to serve as my conscience, a physician to determine my diet for me, and so on, I need not exert myself at all. I need not think, if only I can pay: others will readily undertake the irksome work for me.
What is Enlightenment? (1784)
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!
What is Enlightenment (1784)
Not the observance of outer civil or statutory churchly duties but the pure moral disposition of the heart alone can make man well-pleasing to God. ... From a small beginning in the sharing and spreading of such dispositions, religion, like a grain of seed in good soil, or a ferment of goodness, would gradually, through its inner power, grow into a kingdom of God.
Inclinations of illusion make weak men superstitious and superstitious men weak. ... The illusion that leads them to mistake the subjective for the objective, to take the voice of inner sense for knowledge of things themselves, also makes the tendency to superstition comprehensible.
Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (1798)
The history of mankind can be seen, in the large, as the realization of Nature’s secret plan to bring forth a perfectly constituted state as the only condition in which the capacities of mankind can be fully developed, and also bring forth that external relation among states which is perfectly adequate to this end.
Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View (1784)
All wars are accordingly so many attempts (not in the intention of man, but in the intention of Nature) to establish new relations among states, and through the destruction or at least the dismemberment of all of them to create new political bodies, which, again, either internally or externally, cannot maintain themselves and which must thus suffer like revolutions; until finally, through the best possible civic constitution and common agreement and legislation in external affairs, a state is created which, like a civic commonwealth, can maintain itself automatically.
Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View (1784)
Do what is right, though the world may perish.
Misattributed
Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play.
Disputed
If the truth shall kill them, let them die.
Misattributed