Immanuel Kant quotes - page 9

Everything good that is not based on a morally good disposition, however, is nothing but pretense and glittering misery. (Immanuel Kant)
Through laziness and cowardice a large part of mankind, even after nature has freed them from alien guidance, gladly remain immature. View quote
Immanuel Kant
We see that scattered through space out to infinite distances, there exist similar systems of stars. View quote
Immanuel Kant
One cannot suppress a certain indignation when one sees men's actions on the great world-stage and finds, beside the wisdom that appears here and there among individuals, everything in the large woven together from folly, childish vanity, even from childish malice and destructiveness. View quote
Immanuel Kant
Morality is thus the relation of actions to the autonomy of the will, that is, to a possible giving of universal law through its maxims. View quote
Immanuel Kant
Their analogy with our own system of stars. View quote
Immanuel Kant
The genuine safety-principle of true religion is contrariwise as follows. Whatever is a mean or condition of future bliss, unknown to naked reason, and promulgated singly by revelation, can strike root in my conviction, just like any other history; and so far forth as it does not militate against morality, cannot be absolutely false. Besides leaving this point totally undecided, I may unquestionably trust, that whatever of salutary there may lie in a document, will stand me in good stead, provided I do not by my moral short-coming make myself unworthy of it. In this maxim, there is a real moral safety, viz. That conscience be not violated; and more cannot be demanded from mankind. There is, moreover, an utmost danger and insecurity in that lauded stratagem of expediency, whereby we think astutely to evade any disadvantageous sequents that may spring from unbelieving nonconformity. Thus tampering with either party, we destroy our credit with both. View quote
Immanuel Kant
Dare to think! View quote
Immanuel Kant
Space and time are the framework within which the mind is constrained to construct its experience of reality. View quote
Immanuel Kant
Civil equality, as the right of the citizen to recognize no one as a superior among the people in relation to himself...; and. View quote
Immanuel Kant
Political independence, as the right to owe his existence and continuance in society not to the arbitrary will of another, but to his own rights and powers as a member of the commonwealth. (Immanuel Kant)
The friction among men, the inevitable antagonism, which is a mark of even the largest societies and political bodies, is used by Nature as a means to establish a condition of quiet and security. View quote
Immanuel Kant
Constitutional freedom, as the right of every citizen to have to obey no other law than that to which he has given his consent or approval. View quote
Immanuel Kant
Newton... (after having remarked that geometry only requires two of the mechanical actions which it postulates, namely, to describe a straight line and a circle) says: geometry is proud of being able to achieve so much while taking so little from extraneous sources. One might say of metaphysics, on the other hand: it stands astonished, that with so much offered it by pure mathematics it can effect so little. View quote
Immanuel Kant
[T]he first characteristic of the human species is man's ability, as a rational being, to establish character for himself, as well as for the society into which nature has placed him. This ability, however, presupposes an already favorable natural predisposition and an inclination to the good in man, because the evil is really without character. View quote
Immanuel Kant
To be is to do. View quote
Immanuel Kant
Out of timber so crooked as that from which man is made nothing entirely straight can be carved. View quote
Immanuel Kant
Freedom is the alone unoriginated birthright of man, and belongs to him by force of his humanity; and is independence on the will and co-action of every other in so far as this consists with every other person's freedom. View quote
Immanuel Kant
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! View quote
Immanuel Kant
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. View quote
Immanuel Kant
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 either of advantage to himself. (Immanuel Kant)
Suicide is not abominable because God prohibits it God prohibits it because it is abominable. View quote
Immanuel Kant
The possession of power unavoidably spoils the free use of reason. View quote
Immanuel Kant
God, freedom, and immortality are untenable in the light of pure reason. View quote
Immanuel Kant
With men, the state of nature is not a state of peace, but war. View quote
Immanuel Kant