Famous Immanuel Kant Quotations

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"Out of timber so crooked as that from which man is made nothing entirely straight can be carved."
by Immanuel Kant
"'Human reason is by nature architectonic.'"
by Immanuel Kant
"...as to moral feeling, this supposed special sense, the appeal to it is indeed superficial when those who cannot think believe that feeling will help them out, even in what concerns general laws: and besides, feelings which naturally differ infinitely in degree cannot furnish a uniform standard of good and evil, nor has any one a right to form judgments for others by his own feelings..."
by Immanuel Kant
"A categorical imperative would be one which represented an action as objectively necessary in itself, without reference to any other purpose."
by Immanuel Kant
"Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a general natural law"
by Immanuel Kant
"All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason."
by Immanuel Kant
"Criticism alone can sever the root of materialism, fatalism, atheism, free-thinking, fanaticism, and superstition, which can be injurious universally; as well as of idealism and skepticism, which are dangerous chiefly to the Schools, and hardly allow of being handed on to the public."
by Immanuel Kant
"Even philosophers will praise war as ennobling mankind, forgetting the Greek who said: 'War is bad in that it begets more evil than it kills.'"
by Immanuel Kant
"From timber so crooked as that from which man is carved, nothing entirely straight can be made."
by Immanuel Kant
"From such crooked wood as that which man is made of, nothing straight can be fashioned."
by Immanuel Kant
"Have patience awhile; slanders are not long-lived. Truth is the child of time; erelong she shall appear to vindicate thee."
by Immanuel Kant
"Have patience awhile slanders are not long-lived. Truth is the child of time erelong she shall appear to vindicate thee."
by Immanuel Kant
"Human reason has this peculiar fate that in one species of its knowledge it is burdened by questions which, as prescribed by the very nature of reason itself, it is not able to ignore, but which, as transcending all its powers, it is also not able to answer."
by Immanuel Kant
"It is not God's will merely that we should be happy, but that we should make ourselves happy."
by Immanuel Kant
"May you live your life as if the maxim of your actions were to become universal law."
by Immanuel Kant
"Metaphysics is a dark ocean without shores or lighthouse, strewn with many a philosophic wreck."
by Immanuel Kant
"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."
by Immanuel Kant
"Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life."
by Immanuel Kant
"So act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world."
by Immanuel Kant
"That all our knowledge begins with experience, there is indeed no doubt....but although our knowledge originates WITH experience, it does not all arise OUT OF experience."
by Immanuel Kant
"The history of the human race, viewed as a whole may be regarded as the realization of a hidden plan of nature to bring about a political constitution, internally, and for this purpose, also externally perfect, as the only state in which all the capacities implanted by her in mankind can be fully developed."
by Immanuel Kant
"The inscrutable wisdom through which we exist is not less worthy of veneration in respect to what it denies us than in respect to what it has granted."
by Immanuel Kant
"The possession of power unavoidably spoils the free use of reason"
by Immanuel Kant
"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."
by Immanuel Kant
"To be beneficent when we can is a duty; and besides this, there are many minds so sympathetically constituted that, without any other motive of vanity or self-interest, they find a pleasure in spreading joy around them, and can take delight in the satisfaction of others so far as it is their own work. But I maintain that in such a case an action of this kind, however proper, however amiable it may be, has nevertheless no true moral worth, but is on a level with other inclinations. ... For the maxim lacks the moral import, namely, that such actions be done from duty, not from inclination."
by Immanuel Kant
"Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a be general natural law."
by Immanuel Kant
"If [man] is not to stifle his human feelings, he must practice kindness towards animals, for 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."
by Immanuel Kant
"Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one's understanding without another's guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one's mind without another's guidance. Sapere Aude ! Dare to Know ! Have the courage to use your own understanding is therefore the motto of the Enlightenment."
by Immanuel Kant
"It is not God's will merely that we should be happy, but that we should make ourselves happy"
by Immanuel Kant
"Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing can ever be made."
by Immanuel Kant
"Intuition and concepts constitute... the elements of all our knowledge, so that neither concepts without an intuition in some way corresponding to them, nor intuition without concepts, can yield knowledge."
by Immanuel Kant
"Immanuel Kant was a real pissant Who was very rarely stable Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar Who could think you under the table David Hume could out consume Schopenhauer and Hegel And Wittgenstein was a beery swine Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya 'Bout the raising of the wrist Socrates, himself, was permanently pissed John Stuart Mill, of his own free will On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill Plato they say, could stick it away Half a crate of whiskey every day Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle Hobbes was fond of his dram And Rene' Descartes was a drunken fart 'I drink, therefore I am' Yes, Socrates, himself, is particularly missed A lovely little thinker But a bugger when he's pissed"
by Monty Python, Philosophers' Song
"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?"
by Immanuel Kant
"Confidence in the principles of an enemy must remain even during war, otherwise a peace could never be concluded; and hostilities would degenerate into a war of extermination since war in fact is but the sad resource employed in a state of nature in defence of rights; force standing there in lieu of juridical tribunals. Neither of the two parties can be accused of injustice, since for that purpose a juridical decision would be necessary. But here the event of a battle (as formerly the judgments of God) determines the justice of either party; since between states there cannot be a war of punishment no subordination existing between them. A war, therefore, which might cause the destruction of both parties at once, together with the annihilation of every right, would permit the conclusion of a perpetual peace only upon the vast burial-ground of the human species."
by Immanuel Kant


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