Looking for the best and inspirational Kant quotes?
Immanuel Kant, born in 1724, was a German philosopher and is one of the most important thinkers in the history of Western philosophy.
He showed great aptitude for learning and developed an interest in mathematics and natural sciences. He studied at the University of Königsberg from 1740 to 1744. During this time, he also taught classes on logic and ethics at the University.
He was one of the first philosophers who proposed a comprehensive system of philosophy based on a priori rather than empirical knowledge. He argued that human experience could only yield understanding so far, but that reason can go beyond experience to claim how things must be. One of his most influential contributions to metaphysics is transcendental idealism which states that objects are composed entirely by the mind.
Check out his most inspirational quotes that will change your thoughts to make you better.
69 Inspirational Immanuel Kant Quotes
“Act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.”
“Happiness is not an ideal of reason but of imagination.”
“Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end.”
“Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.”
“Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination.”
“If a man makes himself a worm he must not complain when he is trodden on.”
“Space and time are the framework within which the mind is constrained to construct its experience of reality.”
“It is beyond a doubt that all our knowledge that begins with experience.”
“Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.”
“Rules for Happiness: something to do, someone to love, something to hope 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.”
“If man makes himself a worm he must not complain when he is trodden on.”
“Man must be disciplined, for he is by nature raw and wild“
“Only he who, himself enlightened, is not afraid of shadows.”
“All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.”
“Always treat people as ends in themselves, never as means to an end.”
“The busier we are, the more acutely we feel that we live, the more conscious we are of life.”
“Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play.”
“Genius is the ability to independently arrive at and understand concepts that would normally have to be taught by another person.”
“The possession of power inevitably spoils the free use of reason.”
“Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made“
“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?“
“For peace to reign on Earth, humans must evolve into new beings who have learned to see the whole first.”
“All false art, all vain wisdom, lasts its time but finally destroys itself, and its highest culture is also the epoch of its decay.”
“Live your life as though your every act were to become a universal law.”
“May you live your life as if the maxim of your actions were to become a universal law.”
“How then is perfection to be sought? Wherein lies our hope? In education, and in nothing else.”
“All thought must, directly or indirectly, by way of certain characters, relate ultimately to intuitions, and therefore, with us, to sensibility, because in no other way can an object be given to us.”
“Without man and his potential for moral progress, the whole of reality would be a mere wilderness, a thing in vain, and have no final purpose.”
“We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.”
“It is not necessary that whilst I live I live happily, but it is necessary that so long as I live I should live honorably.”
“Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.”
“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.”
“Man must be disciplined, for he is by nature raw and wild…”
“So act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.”
“Whereas the beautiful is limited, the sublime is limitless, so that the mind in the presence of the sublime, attempting to imagine what it cannot, has pain in the failure but pleasure in contemplating the immensity of the attempt”
“Immaturity is the incapacity to use one’s intelligence without the guidance of another.
“By a lie a man throws away and as it were annihilates his dignity as a man.”
“In law, a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics, he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so.”
“Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.”
“A categorical imperative would be one which represented an action as objectively necessary in itself, without reference to any other purpose.”
“Act so that the maxim of your act could be made the principle of a universal law.”
“The humiliating difference between laymen and clergymen must disappear, and equality spring from true liberty.”
“We are not rich by what we possess but by what we can do without.”
“Seek not the favor of the multitude; it is seldom got by honest and lawful means. But seek the testimony of few; and number not voices, but weigh them.”
“There is something splendid about innocence; but what is bad about it, in turn, is that it cannot protect itself very well and is easily seduced.”
“Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another.”
“In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so.”
“Ingratitude is the essence of vileness.”
“It is not necessary that whilst I live I live happily; but it is necessary that so long as I live I should live honourably.”
“Look closely. The beautiful may be small.”
“But although all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it arises from experience.”
“I had therefore to remove knowledge, in order to make room for belief.”
“An action, to have moral worth, must be done from duty.”
“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.”
“Nothing is divine but what is agreeable to reason.”
“Two things awe me most, the starry sky above me and the moral law within me.”
“One is not rich by what one owns, but more by what one is able to do without with dignity.”
“By a lie, a man… annihilates his dignity as a man.”
“Morality is not properly the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.”
“What can I know? What ought I to do? What can I hope?“
“One who makes himself a worm cannot complain afterwards if people step on him.”
“From such crooked wood as that which man is made of, nothing straight can be fashioned.”
“Give me matter, and I will construct a world out of it!”
“Immaturity is the incapacity to use one’s intelligence without the guidance of another.”
“Freedom is the alone unoriginated birthright of man, and belongs to him by force of his humanity.”
“Have patience awhile; slanders are not long-lived. Truth is the child of time; erelong she shall appear to vindicate thee.”
“Whereas the beautiful is limited, the sublime is limitless, so that the mind in the presence of the sublime, attempting to imagine what it cannot, has pain in the failure but pleasure in contemplating the immensity of the attempt.”
