Quotessence
Home / Authors / Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant Quotes

Philosopher

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenReasonIfsHumansLawScienceMoralEndsPhilosophyUseDoeHumanityWorldCategorical ImperativeDutyMindPhilosophicalThinkingMeanAction

Famous Immanuel Kant Quotes

“Enlightenment is man's release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man's inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. Self-incurred is this tutelage when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another. Sapere aude! 'Have courage to use your own reason!'- that is the motto of enlightenment.”

ReasonPhilosophyTruthUnderstandingCourageEnlightenmentSlaveDirectionTutelage
Book:An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?
Create image

“Skepticism is thus a resting-place for human reason, where it can reflect upon its dogmatic wanderings and make survey of the region in which it finds itself, so that for the future it may be able to choose its path with more certainty. But it is no dwelling-place for permanent settlement. Such can be obtained only through perfect certainty in our knowledge, alike of the objects themselves and of the limits within which all our knowledge of objects is enclosed.”

ReasonPhilosophyIdeologySkepticismDogmatism
Book:Critique of pure reason
Create image

“...[R]eason of itself, independent on all experience, ordains what ought to take place, that accordingly actions of which perhaps the world has hitherto never given an example, the feasibility even if which might be very much doubted by one who founds everything on experience, are nevertheless inflexibly commanded by reason; that, for example, even though there might never yet have been a sincere friend, yet not a whit the less is pure sincerity in friendship required of every man...”

ReasonScienceResponsibilityFateExample
Book:Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals
Create image

“...new prejudices will serve as well as old ones to harness the great unthinking masses. For this enlightenment, however, nothing is required but freedom, and indeed the most harmless among all the things to which this term can properly be applied. It is the freedom to make public use of one's reason at every point. But I hear on all sides, 'Do not argue!' The Officer says: 'Do not argue but drill!' The tax collector: 'Do not argue but pay!' The cleric: 'Do not argue but believe!' Only one prince in the world says, 'Argue as much as you will, and about what you will, but obey!' Everywhere there is restriction on freedom.”

ReasonFreedomEnlightenmentPrejudicesUnthinkingCleric
Book:An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?
Create image

“Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why so great a portion of mankind, after nature has long since discharged them from external direction (naturaliter maiorennes), nevertheless remains under lifelong tutelage, and why it is so easy for others to set themselves up as their guardians. It is so easy not to be of age. If I have a book which understands for me, a pastor who has a conscience for me, a physician who decides my diet, and so forth, I need not trouble myself. I need not think, if I can only pay - others will easily undertake the irksome work for me. That the step to competence is held to be very dangerous by the far greater portion of mankind...”

ReasonNatureMankindDangerCowardiceLazinessPastorCompetencePhysicianTutelage
Book:An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?
Create image

“In the physical constitution of an organized being, that is, a being adapted suitably to the purposes of life, we assume it as a fundamental principle that no organ for any purpose will be found but what is also the fittest and best adapted for that purpose. Now in a being which has reason and a will, if the proper object of nature were its conservation, its welfare, in a word, its happiness, then nature would have hit upon a very bad arrangement in selecting the reason of the creature to carry out this purpose. For all the actions which the creature has to perform with a view to this purpose, and the whole rule of its conduct, would be far more surely prescribed to it by instinct, and that end would have been attained thereby much more certainly that it ever can be by reason. Should reason have been communicated to this favored creature over and above, it must only have served it to contemplate the happy constitution of its nature, to admire it, to congratulate itself thereon, and to feel thankful for it to the beneficent cause, but not that it should subject its desires to that weak and delusive guidance, and meddle bunglingly with the purpose of nature. In a word, nature would have taken care that reason should not break forth into practical exercise, nor have the presumption, with its weak insight, to think out for itself the plan of happiness and the means of attaining it. Nature would not only have taken on herself the choice of the ends but also of the means, and with wise foresight would have entrusted both to instinct.”

ReasonNatureMoralityEthicsInstinctDarwinismSocial Darwinism
Book:Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals
Create image

“Even as to himself, a man cannot pretend to know what he is in himself from the knowledge he has by internal sensation. For as he does not as it were create himself, and does not come by the conception of himself a priori but empirically, it naturally follows that he can obtain his knowledge even of himself only by the inner sense, and consequently only through the appearances of his nature and the way in which his consciousness is affected. At the same time, beyond these characteristics of his own subject, made up of mere appearances, he must necessarily suppose something else as their basis, namely, his ego, whatever its characteristics in itself may be... Now man really finds in himself a faculty by which he distinguishes himself from everything else, even from himself as affected by objects, and that is reason. This being pure spontaneity is even elevated above the understanding. For although the latter is a spontaneity and does not, like sense, merely contain intuitions that arise when we are affected by things (and are therefore passive), yet it cannot produce from its activity any other conceptions than those which merely serve to bring the intuitions of sense under rules, and thereby to unite them in one consciousness, and without this use of the sensibility it could not think at all; whereas, on the contrary, reason shows so pure a spontaneity in the case of what I call "ideas" [Ideal Conceptions] that it thereby far transcends everything that the sensibility can give it, and exhibits its most important function in distinguishing the world of sense from that of understanding, and thereby prescribing the limits of the understanding itself.”

ReasonNature Of ManFallibility
Book:Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals: & The Metaphysical Elements of Ethics
Create image

“...We find that the more a cultivated reason applies itself with deliberate purpose to the enjoyment of life and happiness, so much the more does the man fail of true satisfaction... even from the sciences... they find that they have, in fact, only brought more trouble on their shoulders rather than gained in happiness; and they end by envying rather than despising the more common stamp of men who keep closer to the guidance of mere instinct, and do not allow their reason much influence on their conduct... [T]here lies at the root of these judgments the idea that our existence has a different and far nobler end, for which, and not for happiness, reason is properly intended...”

ReasonScienceFaithRationalism
Book:Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals
Create image

“Metaphysics... is nothing but the inventory of all we possess through pure reason, ordered systematically. Nothing here can escape us, because what reason brings forth entirely out of itself cannot be hidden, but is brought to light by reason itself as soon as reason's common principle has been discovered. The perfect unity of this kind of cognition, and the fact that it arises solely out of pure concepts without any influence that would extend or increase it from experience or even particular intuition, which would lead to a determinate experience, make this unconditioned completeness not only feasible but also necessary. Tecum habita, et noris quam sit tibi curta supellex. Dwell in your own house, and you will know how simple your possessions are. - Persius”

ReasonUnityMetaphysicsCritiqueSystemPrinciples Of Thought
Book:Critique of pure reason
Create image

“(On the seeming futility of metaphysics) Why then has nature afflicted our reason with the restless striving for such a path, as if it were one of reason's most important occupations? Still more, how little cause have we to place trust in our reason if in one of the most important parts of our desire for knowledge it does not merely forsake us but even entices us with delusions and in the end betrays us! Or if the path has merely eluded us so far, what indications may we use that might lead us to hope that in renewed attempts we will be luckier than those who have gone before us?”

ReasonPhilosophyDesireKnowledgeStruggleIllusionClarityMetaphysicsDead EndsStrivingLostnessOff CourseTangled PathsThe Big QuestionsHuman QuestNeed MapUnattainable EndsUnscratchable Itches
Book:Critique of pure reason
Create image

“...Reason should take on anew the most difficult of all its tasks, namely, that of self-knowledge, and to institute a court of justice, by which reason may secure its rightful claims while dismissing all its groundless pretensions, and this not by mere decrees but according to its own eternal and unchangeable laws; and this court is none other than the critique of pure reason itself.”

ReasonKnowledgeLimitsIllusionSelf KnowledgeCritique
Book:Critique of pure reason
Create image

“[At the beginning of modern science], a light dawned on all those who study nature. They comprehended that reason has insight only into what it itself produces according to its own design; that it must take the lead with principles for its judgments according to constant laws and compel nature to answer its questions, rather than letting nature guide its movements by keeping reason, as it were, in leading-strings; for otherwise accidental observations, made according to no previously designed plan, can never connect up into a necessary law, which is yet what reason seeks and requires. Reason, in order to be taught by nature, must approach nature with its principles in one hand, according to which alone the agreement among appearances can count as laws, and, in the other hand, the experiments thought in accordance with these principles - yet in order to be instructed by nature not like a pupil, who has recited to him whatever the teacher wants to say, but like an appointed judge who compels witnesses to answer the questions he puts to them. Thus even physics owes the advantageous revolution in its way of thinking to the inspiration that what reason would not be able to know of itself and has to learn from nature, it has to seek in the latter (though not merely ascribe to it) in accordance with what reason itself puts into nature. This is how natural science was first brought to the secure course of a science after groping about for so many centuries.”

ReasonPhilosophyScienceUnderstandingNaturePhysicsSystemLawsModern ScienceExperimentEmpiricismNecessityConstructivismCritical TurnRational Principles
Book:Critique of pure reason
Create image

“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.”

FirstsReasonAbleMoralChristianityTeacherMouthsAdvantageRelationHistoricalSpreadAll TimeClosestEnteringJudaismTrustworthiness
Book:Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone
Create image

“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.”

MenGivingShouldMeanDoeMadeReasonUsePurposeGoalClearReadyDependsResourcesInstinctVainIndicationProdigals
Author:Immanuel Kant
Create image

“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.”

ReasonCharacterOrderAnswersTeacherAtheismTaughtJudgingApproachPositive AtheismWitnessPupils
Book:Immanuel Kant's Critique Of Pure Reason
Create image

“The only objects of practical reason are therefore those of good and evil. For by the former is meant an object necessarily desired according to a principle of reason; by the latter one necessarily shunned, also according to a principle of reason.”

ReasonEvilPrinciplesObjectsPracticalsFormerGood And EvilLatter
Book:The Critique of Practical Reason: Theory of Moral Reasoning: From the Author of Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of Judgment, Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, Perpetual Peace & Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
Create image

“Reason in a creature is a faculty of widening the rules and purposes of the use of all its powers far beyond natural instinct; it acknowledges no limits to its projects. Reason itself does not work instinctively, but requires trial, practice, and instruction in order gradually to progress from one level of insight to another.”

DoeReasonUsePurposeOrderNaturalLevelsPracticeProgressCreaturesLimitsProjectsInstinctInsightTrialsAcknowledgeFacultyInstructionNatural Instinct
Book:Philosophical writings
Create image

“This can never become popular, and, indeed, has no occasion to be so; for fine-spun arguments in favour of useful truths make just as little impression on the public mind as the equally subtle objections brought against these truths. On the other hand, since both inevitably force themselves on every man who rises to the height of speculation, it becomes the manifest duty of the schools to enter upon a thorough investigation of the rights of speculative reason, and thus to prevent the scandal which metaphysical controversies are sure, sooner or later, to cause even to the masses.”

MenMindLittlesReasonHandsSchoolForceCausesRightsHe ManDutyFineWords Of WisdomMassArgumentEvery ManImpressionOccasionsHeightSubtleManifestInvestigationSooner Or LaterMetaphysicalFavourSpeculationScandalControversyThoroughObjectionsSpun
Book:Critique of pure reason, tr. by J.M.D. Meiklejohn
Create image