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Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant Quotes

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Famous Immanuel Kant Quotes

“For if the question is absurd in itself and demands unnecessary answers, then, besides the embarrassment of the one who proposes it, it also has the disadvantage of misleading the incautious listener into absurd answers, and presenting the ridiculous sight (as the ancients said) of one person milking a billy-goat while the other holds a sieve underneath. (A58/B82)”

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Book:Critique of pure reason
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“[A man], who is in prosperity, while he sees that others have to contend with great wretchedness and that he could help them, thinks: What concern is it of mine? Let everyone be as happy as Heaven pleases, or as he can make himself; I will take nothing from him nor even envy him, only I do not wish to contribute anything to his welfare or to his assistance in distress! Now no doubt, if such a mode of thinking were a universal law, the human race might very well subsist, and doubtless even better than in a state in which everyone talks of sympathy and good-will, or even takes care occasionally to put it into practice, but, on the other side, also cheats when he can, betrays the rights of men, or otherwise violates them. But although it is possible that a universal law of nature might exist in accordance with that maxim, it is impossible to will that such a principle should have the universal validity of a law of nature. For a will which resolved this would contradict itself, inasmuch as many cases might occur in which one would have need of the love and sympathy of others, and in which, by such a law of nature, sprung from his own will, he would deprive himself of all hope of the aid he desires.”

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Book:Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals
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“...[T]here is no art in being intelligible if one renounces all thoroughness of insight; but also it produces a disgusting medley of compiled observations and half-reasoned principles. Shallow pates enjoy this because it can be used for everyday chat, but the sagacious find in it only confusion, and being unsatisfied and unable to help themselves, they turn away their eyes, while philosophers, who see quite well through this delusion, are little listened to when they call men off for a time from this pretended popularity in order that they might be rightfully popular after they have attained a definite insight.”

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Book:Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals
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“Preferential tributes of respect in words and manners even to those who have no authority in the State - reverences, obeisances (compliments) and courtly phrases marking with the utmost precision every distinction in status (something altogether different from courtesy, which must also be reciprocal) - the Du, Er, Ihr and Sie, or Ew. Wohledeln, Hochedeln, Hochedelgeborenen, Wohlgeborenen (ohe, iam satis est!) as forms of address, a pedantry in which the Germans seem to outdo any other people in the world (except possibly the Indian castes): does not all this prove that there is a widespread propensity to servility in men? But one who makes himself a worm cannot complain if people step on him.”

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Book:The Doctrine of Virtue: Part 2 of The Metaphysic of Morals
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“When an upright man is in the greatest distress, which he might have avoided if he could only have disregarded duty, is he not sustained by the consciousness that he has maintained humanity in its proper dignity in his own person and honoured it, that he has no reason to be ashamed of himself in his own sight, or to dread the inward glance of self-examination? This consolation is not happiness, it is not even the smallest part of it, for no one would wish to have occasion for it, or would, perhaps, even desire a life in such circumstances. But he lives, and he cannot endure that he should be in his own eyes unworthy of life. This inward peace is therefore merely negative as regards what can make life pleasant; it is, in fact, only the escaping the danger of sinking in personal worth, after everything else that is valuable has been lost. It is the effect of a respect for something quite different from life, something in comparison and contrast with which life with all its enjoyment has no value. He still lives only because it is his duty, not because he finds anything pleasant in life.”

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Book:The Critique of Pure Reason/A Commentary to Kant's Critique
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“We now concern ourselves with a labor less spectacular but nevertheless not unrewarding: that of making the terrain for these majestic moral edifices level and firm enough to be built upon; for under this ground there are all sorts of passageways, such as moles might have dug, left over from reason's vain but confident treasure hunting, that make every building insecure. (A319/B377)”

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Book:Critique of pure reason
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“O homem, e, duma maneira geral, todo o ser racional, existe como fim em si mesmo, não só como meio para o uso arbitrário desta ou daquela vontade. Pelo contrário, em todas as suas ações, tanto nas que se dirigem a ele mesmo como nas que se dirigem a outros seres racionais, ele tem sempre de ter considerado simultaneamente como fim.”

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Book:Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
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“B626 Sein ist offenbar kein reales Prädikat, d.i. ein Begriff von irgend etwas, was zu dem Begriffe eines Dinges, oder gewisser Bestimmungen an sich selbst... B627 Und so enthält das Wirkliche nichts mehr, als das bloss Mögliche. Hundert wirkliche Thaler enthalten nicht das mindeste mehr, als hundert mögliche... Aber in meinem Vermögenszustande ist mehr bei hundert wirklichen Thalern, als bei dem blossen Begriffe derselben, ( d.i. ihrer Moeglichkeit ).”

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Book:Kritik der reinen Vernunft 2. Auflage
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“No-one can compel me to be happy in accordance with his conception of the welfare of others, for each may seek his happiness in whatever way he sees fit, so long as he does not infringe upon the freedom of others to pursue a similar end which can be reconciled with the freedom of everyone else within a workable general law ? i.e. he must accord to others the same right as he enjoys himself.”

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Book:Kant: Political Writings
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“Since the narrower or wider community of the peoples of the earth has developed so far that a violation of rights in one place is felt throughout the world, the idea of a cosmopolitan right is not fantastical, high-flown or exaggerated notion. It is a complement to the unwritten code of the civil and international law, necessary for the public rights of mankind in general and thus for the realization of perpetual peace.”

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Author:Immanuel Kant
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“Christianity possesses the great advantage over Judaism of being represented as coming from the mouth of the first Teacher not as a statutory but as a moral religion, and as thus entering into the closest relation with reason so that, through reason, it was able of itself, without historical learning, to be spread at all times and among all peoples with the greatest trustworthiness.”

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Book:Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone
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“The evil effect of science upon men is principally this, that by far the greatest number of those who wish to display a knowledge of it accomplish no improvement at all of the understanding, but only a perversity of it, not to mention that it serves most of them as a tool of vanity.”

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Book:The Educational Theory of Immanuel Kant
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“In the metaphysical elements of aesthetics the various nonmoral feelings are to be made use of; in the elements of moral metaphysics the various moral feelings of men, according to the differences in sex, age, education, and government, of races and climates, are to be employed.”

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Book:The Educational Theory of Immanuel Kant
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“Nature does nothing in vain, and in the use of means to her goals she is not prodigal. Her giving to man reason and the freedom of the will which depends upon it is clear indication of her purpose. Man accordingly was not to be guided by instinct, not nurtured and instructed with ready-made knowledge; rather, he should bring forth everything out of his own resources.”

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Author:Immanuel Kant
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“Even if a civil society were to be dissolved by the consent of all its members (e.g., if a people inhabiting an island decided to separate and disperse throughout the world), the last murderer remaining in prison would first have to be executed, so that each has done to him what his deeds deserve and blood guilt does not cling to the people for not having insisted upon this punishment; for otherwise the people can be regarded as collaborators in his public violation of justice.”

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Book:Practical Philosophy
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“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.”

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Book:Perpetual Peace and Other Essays: on Politics, History, and Morals
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“Moral Teleology supplies the deficiency in physical Teleology , and first establishes a Theology ; because the latter, if it did not borrow from the former without being observed, but were to proceed consistently, could only found a Demonology , which is incapable of any definite concept.”

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Book:THE THREE CRITIQUES: The Critique of Pure Reason, The Critique of Practical Reason & The Critique of Judgment: The Base Plan for Transcendental Philosophy, The Theory of Moral Reasoning and The Critiques of Aesthetic and Teleological Judgment
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“Reason must approach nature in order to be taught by it. It must not, however, do so in the character of a pupil who listens to everything that the teacher chooses to say, but of an appointed judge who compels the witness to answer questions which he has himself formulated.”

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Book:Immanuel Kant's Critique Of Pure Reason
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