The Most Enlightenment Immanuel Kant Quotes

Thoughts without contents are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.Critique of Pure Reason (1781), (tr. Müller, ed. 1881), Page 45

Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one understanding without guidance of another.An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment? (1784); Kant's Political Writings (tr. Nisbet, ed. 1970), Page 54

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.An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment? (1784); Kant's Political Writings (tr. Nisbet, ed. 1970), Page 54

The senses never err, not because they always judge rightly, but because they do not judge at all.Critique of Pure Reason (1781), (tr. Müller, ed. 1881), Second Part, Page 254

The unsearchable wisdom by which we exist is not less worthy of admiration in what it has denied than in what it has granted.Critique of Practical Reason (1788), (tr. Abbott, ed. 1898), Page 246

All the natural capacities of a creature are destined sooner or later to be developed completely and in conformity with their end.Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose (1784); Kant's Political Writings (tr. Nisbet, ed. 1970), Page 42

It is difficult for each separate individual to work his way out of the immaturity which has become almost second nature to him.An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment? (1784); Kant's Political Writings (tr. Nisbet, ed. 1970), Page 54

Only the descent into the hell of self-cognition can pave the way to godliness.The Metaphysics of Morals (1797), (tr. Gregor, ed. 1996), Page 191

Laughter is an affect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing.Critique of Judgment (1790), (tr. Pluhar, ed. 1987), Page 203

For the fact that the object of an injustice is small does not mean that the injustice done to it may not be very great.Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch (1795); Kant's Political Writings (tr. Nisbet, ed. 1970), Page 128

By a lie a man throws away and, as it were, annihilates his dignity as a man.The Metaphysics of Morals (1797), (tr. Gregor, ed. 1964), Page 93

Have courage to use your own understanding!An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment? (1784); Kant's Political Writings (tr. Nisbet, ed. 1970), Page 54

Morality is not properly the doctrine how we should make ourselves happy, but how we should become worthy of happiness.Critique of Practical Reason (1788), (tr. Abbott, ed. 1898), Page 227

Morality thus is the relation of actions to the autonomy of the will, that is, to the possible universal legislation through its maxims.Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), (tr. Gregor, ed. 2012), Page 51

All good enterprises which are not grafted on to a morally good attitude of mind are nothing but illusion and outwardly glittering misery.Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose (1784); Kant's Political Writings (tr. Nisbet, ed. 1970), Page 49

Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law.Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), (tr. Gregor, ed. 2012), Page 34

Happiness is not an ideal of reason but of imagination.Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), (tr. Gregor, ed. 2012), Page 32

The public use of man’s reason must always be free, and it alone can bring about enlightenment among men.An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment? (1784); Kant's Political Writings (tr. Nisbet, ed. 1970), Page 55

Reason, in a creature, is a faculty which enables that creature to extend far beyond the limits of natural instinct the rules and intentions it follows in using its various powers, and the range of its projects is unbounded. But reason does not itself work instinctively, for it requires trial, practice and instruction to enable it to progress gradually from one stage of insight to the next.Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose (1784); Kant's Political Writings (tr. Nisbet, ed. 1970), Page 42

The more a cultivated reason engages with the purpose of enjoying life and with happiness, so much the further does a human being stray from true contentment.Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), (tr. Gregor, ed. 2012), Page 11

Nothing straight can be constructed from such warped wood as that which man is made of.Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose (1784); Kant's Political Writings (tr. Nisbet, ed. 1970), Page 46

Man is an animal that, so long as he lives amongst others of his species, stands in need of a master.Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose (1784); The Works of Thomas De Quincey, (ed. 1862), Volume XII, Page 141

Man wishes concord, but nature, knowing better what is good for his species, wishes discord.Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose (1784); Kant's Political Writings (tr. Nisbet, ed. 1970), Page 45

Freedom (independence from being cnstrained by another’s choice), insofar as it can coexist with the freedom of every other in accordance with a universal law, is the only original right belonging to every man by virtue of his humanity.The Metaphysics of Morals (1797), (tr. Gregor, ed. 1996), Page 30

For enlightenment of this kind, all that is needed is freedom. And the freedom in question is the most innocuous form of all-freedom to make public use of one’s reason in all matters.An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment? (1784); Kant's Political Writings (tr. Nisbet, ed. 1970), Page 55

All our knowledge is contained within this whole of possible experience.Critique of Pure Reason (1781), (tr. Müller, ed. 1881), Second Part, Page 129

But although all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it arises from experience.Critique of Pure Reason (1781), (tr. Müller, ed. 1881), First Part, Page 398

I have no knowledge of myself as I am, but only as I appear to myself.Critique of Pure Reason (1781), (tr. Müller, ed. 1881), First Part, Page 454

I had therefore to remove knowledge, in order to make room for belief.Critique of Pure Reason (1781), (tr. Müller, ed. 1881), Page 380

All human knowledge begins with intuitions, advances to concepts, and ends with ideas. Critique of Pure Reason (1781), (tr. Müller, ed. 1881), Page 600

We are not rich by what we possess but by what we can do without.No source

We see things not as they are, but as we are. No source

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life. Herbert Spencer