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Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant Quotes

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Famous Immanuel Kant Quotes

“I shall never forget my mother, for it was she who planted and nurtured the first seeds of good within me. She opened my heart to the lasting impressions of nature; she awakened my understanding and extended my horizon and her percepts exerted an everlasting influence upon the course of my life.”

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Author:Immanuel Kant
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“...as soon as we examine suicide from the standpoint of religion we immediately see it in its true light. We have been placed in this world under certain conditions and for specific purposes. But a suicide opposes the purpose of his creator; he arrives in the other world as one who has deserted his post; he must be looked upon as a rebel against God. God is our owner; we are his property; his providence works for our good.”

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Author:Immanuel Kant
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“Reason must approach nature with the view, indeed, of receiving information from it, not, however, in the character of a pupil, who listens to all that his master chooses to tell him, but in that of a judge, who compels the witnesses to reply to those questions which he himself thinks fit to propose. To this single idea must the revolution be ascribed, by which, after groping in the dark for so many centuries, natural science was at length conducted into the path of certain progress.”

ThinkingIdeasReasonCharacterScienceCertainNatureNaturalDarkViewsPathProgressCenturyInformationJudgingMastersRevolutionFitApproachWitnessLengthReceivingProposePupilsNatural Science
Book:Critique of pure reason
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“We come no nearer the infinitude of the creative power of God, if we enclose the space of its revelation within a sphere described with the radius of the Milky Way, than if we were to limit it to a ball an inch in diameter. All that is finite, whatever has limits and a definite relation to unity, is equally far removed from the infinite... Eternity is not sufficient to embrace the manifestations of the Supreme Being, if it is not combined with the infinitude of space.”

IfsWayGodScienceSpaceCreativeCreationLimitsBallsEternityRelationInfiniteEmbraceUnitySupremeManifestationSufficientRevelationsSpheresInchesDefiniteFinitePower Of GodCreative PowerSupreme BeingMilky WayRadius
Book:Kant's cosmogony as in his essay on the retardation of the rotation of the earth and his Natural history and theory of the heavens: With introduction, appendices, and a portrait of Thomas Wright of Durham
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“Our knowledge springs from two fundamental sources of the mind; the first is the capacity of receiving representations (receptivity for impressions), the second is the power of knowing an object through these representations (spontaneity [in the production] of concepts).”

KnowsMindFirstsTwoScienceKnowledgeKnowingObjectsSourceSpringConceptsCapacityFundamentalsProductionsImpressionReceivingRepresentationSpontaneityReceptivity
Book:Immanuel Kant's Critique Of Pure Reason
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“God put a secret art into the forces of Nature so as to enable it to fashion itself out of chaos into a perfect world system.”

WorldArtScienceForceNaturePerfectSecretFashionChaosForces Of NatureA Perfect World
Book:Kant's cosmogony as in his essay on the retardation of the rotation of the earth and his Natural history and theory of the heavens: With introduction, appendices, and a portrait of Thomas Wright of Durham
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“Nature even in chaos cannot proceed otherwise than regularly and according to order.”

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Book:Kant's cosmogony as in his essay on the retardation of the rotation of the earth and his Natural history and theory of the heavens: With introduction, appendices, and a portrait of Thomas Wright of Durham
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“Beneficence is a duty. He who frequently practices it, and sees his benevolent intentions realized, at length comes really to love him to whom he has done good. When, therefore, it is said, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," it is not meant, thou shalt love him first and do him good in consequence of that love, but, thou shalt do good to thy neighbor; and this thy beneficence will engender in thee that love to mankind which is the fulness and consummation of the inclination to do good.”

FirstsSaidDonePracticeMankindDutyConsequenceIntentionCharityNeighborTheeLengthInclinationThyselfBenevolenceBenevolentLove Thy NeighborBeneficence
Author:Immanuel Kant
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“[S]uppose the mind of [a] friend of humanity were clouded over with his own grief, extinguishing all sympathetic participation in the fate of others; he still has the resources to be beneficent to those suffering distress, but the distress of others does not touch him because he is sufficiently busy with his own; and now, where no inclination any longer stimulates him to it, he tears himself out of his deadly insensibility and does the action without any inclination, solely from duty.”

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Author:Immanuel Kant
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“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.”

IfsReasonAgeAuthorityDignityCriticismTestsClaimsLaysCriticsSincereLegislationExaminationAccordSacrednessTribunalsExemption
Book:The Critique of Pure Reason
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“If you punish a child for being naughty, and reward him for being good, he will do right merely for the sake of the reward; and when he goes out into the world and finds that goodness is not always rewarded, nor wickedness always punished, he will grow into a man who only thinks about how he may get on in the world, and does right or wrong according as he finds advantage to himself.”

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Book:On Education
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“Give me matter, and I will construct a world out of it!”

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Book:Kant's cosmogony as in his essay on the retardation of the rotation of the earth and his Natural history and theory of the heavens: With introduction, appendices, and a portrait of Thomas Wright of Durham
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“We find that the more a cultivated reason devotes itself to the aim of enjoying life and happiness, the further does man get away from true contentment.”

MenDoeReasonEnjoyAimContentmentGet AwayBeing HappyEnjoy LifeLife And Happiness
Book:Ethical Philosophy: The Complete Texts of Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, and Metaphysical Principles of Virtue, Part II of The Metaphysics of Morals, with On a Supposed Right to Lie Because of Philanthropic Concerns
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“One cannot avoid a certain feeling of disgust, when one observes the actions of man displayed on the great stage of the world. Wisdom is manifested by individuals here and there; but the web of human history as a whole appears to be woven from folly and childish vanity, often, too, from puerile wickedness and love of destruction: with the result that at the end one is puzzled to know what idea to form of our species which prides itself so much on its advantages.”

KnowsMenWorldHumansIdeasEndsWholeFeelingsActionFormCertainIndividualResultsExistenceStagePrideAdvantageDestructionAnd LoveSpeciesVanityFollyDisgustingWickednessHuman HistoryHere And ThereHuman ExistenceWovenPuzzled
Author:Immanuel Kant
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“But where only a free play of our presentational powers is to be sustained, as in the case of pleasure gardens, room decoration, all sorts of useful utensils, and so on, any regularity that has an air of constraint is [to be] avoided as much as possible. That is why the English taste in gardens, or the baroque taste in furniture, carries the imagination's freedom very far, even to the verge of the grotesque, because it is precisely this divorce from any constraint of a rule that the case is posited where taste can show its greatest perfection in designs made by the imagination.”

ArtMadePlayShowsImaginationPleasureRoomsCasesAirDesignTasteGardenPerfectionDivorceCarrieFurnitureAvoidedConstraintsVergeGrotesqueDecorationRegularityBaroqueUtensilsFree Play
Author:Immanuel Kant
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