Immanuel Kant quotes

Immanuel Kant, a renowned philosopher from the 18th century, is hailed as one of the most influential thinkers in Western philosophy. His groundbreaking work in epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics have shaped the course of philosophical inquiry since his time. Kant's philosophy centers around the concept of "duty," emphasizing moral principles and rationality. With his seminal works, "Critique of Pure Reason" and "Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals," Kant aimed to reconcile rationalism and empiricism, paving the way for modern philosophy. Discover more about Immanuel Kant's profound ideas and intellectual legacy at our website. Explore the profound teachings of this distinguished philosopher that continue to challenge and inspire contemporary thinkers and scholars.

Happiness is not an ideal of reason but of imagination.

- Immanuel Kant

Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but of how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.

- Immanuel Kant

Rules for happiness: something to do, someone to love, something to hope for.

- Immanuel Kant

If man makes himself a worm he must not complain when he is trodden on.

- Immanuel Kant

Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play.

- Immanuel Kant

So act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.

- Immanuel Kant

A categorical imperative would be one which represented an action as objectively necessary in itself, without reference to any other purpose.

- Immanuel Kant

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.

- Immanuel Kant

May you live your life as if the maxim of your actions were to become universal law.

- Immanuel Kant

Religion is the recognition of all our duties as divine commands.

- Immanuel Kant

By a lie, a man... annihilates his dignity as a man.

- Immanuel Kant

To be is to do.

- Immanuel Kant

It is not God's will merely that we should be happy, but that we should make ourselves happy.

- Immanuel Kant

Even philosophers will praise war as ennobling mankind, forgetting the Greek who said: 'War is bad in that it begets more evil than it kills.'

- Immanuel Kant

Out of timber so crooked as that from which man is made nothing entirely straight can be carved.

- Immanuel Kant

Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end.

- Immanuel Kant

I had therefore to remove knowledge, in order to make room for belief.

- Immanuel Kant

From such crooked wood as that which man is made of, nothing straight can be fashioned.

- Immanuel Kant

Metaphysics is a dark ocean without shores or lighthouse, strewn with many a philosophic wreck.

- Immanuel Kant

Act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.

- Immanuel Kant

Nothing is divine but what is agreeable to reason.

- Immanuel Kant

Immaturity is the incapacity to use one's intelligence without the guidance of another.

- Immanuel Kant

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.

- Immanuel Kant

But although all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it arises from experience.

- Immanuel Kant

Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.

- Immanuel Kant

It is beyond a doubt that all our knowledge that begins with experience.

- Immanuel Kant

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.

- Immanuel Kant

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.

- Immanuel Kant

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.

- Immanuel Kant

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.

- Immanuel Kant