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Even If A Civil Society Were To Be Dissolved By The Consent Of All Its Members (e.g., If A People Inhabiting An Island Decided To Separate And Disperse Throughout The World), The Last Murderer Remaining In Prison Would First Have To Be Executed, So That Each Has Done To Him What His Deeds Deserve And Blood Guilt Does Not Cling To The People For Not Having Insisted Upon This Punishment; For Otherwise The People Can Be Regarded As Collaborators In His Public Violation Of Justice.

-Immanuel Kant

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Even If A Civil

Immanuel Kant

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Even If A Civil Society Were To Be Dissolved By The Consent Of All Its Members (e.g., If A People Inhabiting An Island Decided To Separate And Disperse Throughout The World), The Last Murderer Remaining In Prison Would First Have To Be Executed, So That Each Has Done To Him What His Deeds Deserve And Blood Guilt Does Not Cling To The People For Not Having Insisted Upon This Punishment; For Otherwise The People Can Be Regarded As Collaborators In His Public Violation Of Justice.

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But Although All Our Knowledge Begins With Experience, It Does Not Follow That It Arises From Experience.

The Schematicism By Which Our Understanding Deals With The Phenomenal World ... Is A Skill So Deeply Hidden In The Human Soul That We Shall Hardly Guess The Secret Trick That Nature Here Employs.

Religion Is The Recognition Of All Our Duties As Divine Commands.

Human Reason Has This Peculiar Fate That In One Species Of Its Knowledge It Is Burdened By Questions Which, As Prescribed By The Very Nature Of Reason Itself, It Is Not Able To Ignore, But Which, As Transcending All Its Powers, It Is Also Not Able To Answer.

Act In Such A Way That You Will Be Worthy Of Being Happy.

Since The Narrower Or Wider Community Of The Peoples Of The Earth Has Developed So Far That A Violation Of Rights In One Place Is Felt Throughout The World, The Idea Of A Cosmopolitan Right Is Not Fantastical, High-flown Or Exaggerated Notion. It Is A Complement To The Unwritten Code Of The Civil And International Law, Necessary For The Public Rights Of Mankind In General And Thus For The Realization Of Perpetual Peace.

Morality Is Not Properly The Doctrine Of How We May Make Ourselves Happy, But How We May Make Ourselves Worthy Of Happiness.

Even A Man's Exact Imitation Of The Song Of The Nightingale Displeases Us When We Discover That It Is A Mimicry, And Not The Nightingale.

How Then Is Perfection To Be Sought? Wherein Lies Our Hope? In Education, And In Nothing Else.

Genius Is The Ability To Independently Arrive At And Understand Concepts That Would Normally Have To Be Taught By Another Person.

Act Only According To That Maxim Whereby You Can At The Same Time Will That It Should Become A Universal Law.

Humanity Is At Its Greatest Perfection In The Race Of The Whites.

[s]uppose The Mind Of [a] Friend Of Humanity Were Clouded Over With His Own Grief, Extinguishing All Sympathetic Participation In The Fate Of Others; He Still Has The Resources To Be Beneficent To Those Suffering Distress, But The Distress Of Others Does Not Touch Him Because He Is Sufficiently Busy With His Own; And Now, Where No Inclination Any Longer Stimulates Him To It, He Tears Himself Out Of His Deadly Insensibility And Does The Action Without Any Inclination, Solely From Duty.

Standing Armies Shall In Time Be Totally Abolished.

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

Things Which We See Are Not By Themselves What We See ... It Remains Completely Unknown To Us What The Objects May Be By Themselves And Apart From The Receptivity Of Our Senses. We Know Nothing But Our Manner Of Perceiving Them.

All Trades, Arts, And Handiworks Have Gained By Division Of Labor... Where The Different Kinds Of Work Are Not Distinguished And Divided, Where Everyone Is A Jack-of-all-trades, There Manufactures Remain Still In The Greatest Barbarism.

Division Of Labor

There Can Be No Doubt That All Our Knowledge Begins With Experience.

Knowledge Experience

Knowledge And Experience

Beauty Presents An Indeterminate Concept Of Understanding, The Sublime An Indeterminate Concept Of Reason.

Do What Is Right, Though The World May Perish.

Beneficence Is A Duty.

Every Man Is To Be Respected As An Absolute End In Himself; And It Is A Crime Against The Dignity That Belongs To Him As A Human Being, To Use Him As A Mere Means For Some External Purpose.

Perpetual Peace Is Only Found In The Graveyard.

[a Ruler Is Merely] The Trustee Of The Rights Of Other Men And He Must Always Stand In Dread Of Having In Some Way Violated These Rights.

The Existence Of The Bible, As A Book For The People, Is The Greatest Benefit Which The Human Race Has Ever Experienced. Every Attempt To Belittle It Is A Crime Against Humanity.

All Our Knowledge Begins With The Senses...

Categorical Imperative

So Act That Anything You Do May Become Universal Law.

Men Will Not Understand ... That When They Fulfil Their Duties To Men, They Fulfil Thereby God's Commandments; That They Are Consequently Always In The Service Of God, As Long As Their Actions Are Moral, And That It Is Absolutely Impossible To Serve God Otherwise.

Enlightenment Is Man's Emergence From His Self-incurred Immaturity.

Only The Descent Into The Hell Of Self-knowledge Can Pave The Way To Godliness.

In The Mere Concept Of One Thing It Cannot Be Found Any Character Of Its Existence.

Sincerity Is The Indispensable Ground Of All Conscientiousness, And By Consequence Of All Heartfelt Religion.

It Is Difficult For The Isolated Individual To Work Himself Out Of The Immaturity Which Has Become Almost Natural For Him.

The Death Of Dogma Is The Birth Of Morality.

Thinking In Pictures Precedes Thinking In Words.

***three Conditions Of Happiness*** If You Have Work To Do If You Have Someone You Love If You Have Hope Then You Are Happy Now!

Someone You Love

All Our Knowledge Falls With The Bounds Of Experience.

What Can I Know? What Ought I To Do? What May I Hope?

The Desire Which A Man Has For A Woman Is Not Directed Towards Her Because She Is A Human Being, But Because She Is A Woman ; That She Is A Human Being Is Of No Concern To The Man; Only Her Sex Is The Object Of His Desires.

Aus So Krummen Holze, Als Woraus Der Mensch Gemacht Ist, Kann Nichts Ganz Gerades Gezimmert Werden. Out Of The Crooked Timber Of Humanity, No Straight Thing Can Ever Be Made.

Art Does Not Want The Representation Of A Beautiful Thing, But The Representation Of Something Beautiful.

The Science Of Mathematics Presents The Most Brilliant Example Of How Pure Reason May Successfully Enlarge Its Domain Without The Aid Of Experience

From Such Crooked Wood As That Which Man Is Made Of, Nothing Straight Can Be Fashioned.

Often War Is Waged Only In Order To Show Valor; Thus An Inner Dignity Is Ascribed To War Itself, And Even Some Philosophers Have Praised It As An Ennoblement Of Humanity, Forgetting The Pronouncement Of The Greek Who Said, 'war Is An Evil In As Much As It Produces More Wicked Men Than It Takes Away.'

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.

If Man Makes Himself A Worm He Must Not Complain When He Is Trodden On.

A Philosophical Attempt To Work Out A Universal History According To A Natural Plan Directed To Achieving The Civic Union Of The Human Race Must Be Regarded As Possible And, Indeed, As Contributing To This End Of Nature.

Man Desired Concord; But Nature Knows Better What Is Good For His Species; She Desires Discord. Man Wants To Live Easy And Content; But Nature Compels Him To Leave Ease... And Throw Himself Into Roils And Labors.

Human Reason Has The Peculiar Fate In One Species Of Its Cognitions That It Is Burdened With Questions Which It Cannot Dismiss, Since They Are Given To It As Problems By The Nature Of Reason Itself, But Which It Also Cannot Answer, Since They Transcend Every Capacity Of Human Reason.

The Ideal Of The Supreme Being Is Nothing But A Regulative Principle Of Reason Which Directs Us To Look Upon All Connection In The World As If It Originated From An All-sufficient Necessary Cause.

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.

The Evil Effect Of Science Upon Men Is Principally This, That By Far The Greatest Number Of Those Who Wish To Display A Knowledge Of It Accomplish No Improvement At All Of The Understanding, But Only A Perversity Of It, Not To Mention That It Serves Most Of Them As A Tool Of Vanity.

I Assert That, In Any Particular Natural Science, One Encounters Genuine Scientific Substance Only To The Extent That Mathematics Is Present.

I Am An Investigator By Inclination. I Feel A Great Thirst For Knowledge.

I Had Therefore To Remove Knowledge, In Order To Make Room For Belief.

The More We Come In Contact With Animals And Observe Their Behaviour, The More We Love Them, For We See How Great Is Their Care Of The Young.

All Perception Is Colored By Emotion.

The Light Dove, Cleaving The Air In Her Free Flight, And Feeling Its Resistance, Might Imagine That Its Flight Would Be Still Easier In Empty Space.

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.

We Ourselves Introduce That Order And Regularity In The Appearance Which We Entitle "nature". We Could Never Find Them In Appearances Had We Not Ourselves, By The Nature Of Our Own Mind, Originally Set Them There.

One Who Makes Himself A Worm Cannot Complain Afterwards If People Step On Him.

The Sceptics, A Kind Of Nomads, Despising All Settled Culture Of The Land, Broke Up From Time To Time All Civil Society. Fortunately Their Number Was Small, And They Could Not Prevent The Old Settlers From Returning To Cultivate The Ground Afresh, Though Without Any Fixed Plan Or Agreement.

In Man (as The Only Rational Creature On Earth) Those Natural Capacities Which Are Directed To The Use Of His Reason Are To Be Fully Developed Only In The Race, Not In The Individual.

Prudence Reproaches; Conscience Accuses.

Suicide Is Not Abominable Because God Prohibits It; God Prohibits It Because It Is Abominable.

Man's Duty Is To Improve Himself; To Cultivate His Mind; And, When He Finds Himself Going Astray, To Bring The Moral Law To Bear Upon Himself.

All Our Knowledge Begins With The Senses, Proceeds Then To The Understanding, And Ends With Reason. There Is Nothing Higher Than Reason.

Fallacious And Misleading Arguments Are Most Easily Detected If Set Out In Correct Syllogistic Form.

Happiness Is Not An Ideal Of Reason, But Of Imagination.

The Existence Of The Bible Is The Greatest Blessing Which Humanity Ever Experienced.

Enthusiasm Is Always Connected With The Senses, Whatever Be The Object That Excites It. The True Strength Of Virtue Is Serenity Of Mind, Combined With A Deliberate And Steadfast Determination To Execute Her Laws. That Is The Healthful Condition Of The Moral Life; On The Other Hand, Enthusiasm, Even When Excited By Representations Of Goodness, Is A Brilliant But Feverish Glow Which Leaves Only Exhaustion And Languor Behind.

Human Beings Are Never To Be Treated As A Means But Always As Ends.

Each According To His Own Way Of Seeing Things, Seek One Goal, That Is Gratification.

Marriage...is The Union Of Two People Of Different Sexes With A View To The Mutual Possession Of Each Other's Sexual Attributes For The Duration Of Their Lives.

But Where Only A Free Play Of Our Presentational Powers Is To Be Sustained, As In The Case Of Pleasure Gardens, Room Decoration, All Sorts Of Useful Utensils, And So On, Any Regularity That Has An Air Of Constraint Is [to Be] Avoided As Much As Possible. That Is Why The English Taste In Gardens, Or The Baroque Taste In Furniture, Carries The Imagination's Freedom Very Far, Even To The Verge Of The Grotesque, Because It Is Precisely This Divorce From Any Constraint Of A Rule That The Case Is Posited Where Taste Can Show Its Greatest Perfection In Designs Made By The Imagination.

Here I Shall Add That The Concept Of Change, And With It The Concept Of Motion, As Change Of Place, Is Possible Only Through And In The Representation Of Time. & Motion, For Example, Presupposes The Perception Of Something Movable. But Space Considered In Itself Contains Nothing Movable; Consequently Motion Must Be Something Which Is Found In Space Only Through Experience -in Other Words, Is An Empirical Datum.

Words Of Wisdom

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.

Philosophical Knowledge Is The Knowledge Gained By Reason From Concepts ; Mathematical Knowledge Is The Knowledge Gained By Reason From The Construction Of Concepts.

An Action Is Essentially Good If The Motive Of The Agent Be Good, Regardless Of The Consequences.

A Society That Is Not Willing To Demand A Life Of Somebody Who Has Taken Somebody Else’s Life Is Simply Immoral.

Great Minds Think For Themselves.

Even The Song Of Birds, Which We Can Bring Under No Musical Rule, Seems To Have More Freedom, And Therefore More For Taste, Than A Song Of A Human Being Which Is Produced In Accordance With All The Rules Of Music; For We Very Much Sooner Weary Of The Latter, If It Is Repeated Often And At Length. Here, However, We Probably Confuse Our Participation In The Mirth Of A Little Creature That We Love, With The Beauty Of Its Song; For If This Were Exactly Imitated By Man (as Sometimes The Notes Of The Nightingale Are) It Would Seem To Our Ear Quite Devoid Of Taste.

He Who Has Made Great Moral Progress Ceases To Pray

All Appearances Have A Determinate Magnitude (the Relation Of Which To Another Assignable). The Infinite Does Not Appear As Such, Likewise Not The Simple. For The Appearances Are Included Between Two Boundaries (points) And Are Thus Themselves Determinate Magnitudes.

Most Men Use Their Knowledge Only Under Guidance From Others Because They Lack The Courage To Think Independently Using Their Own Reasoning Abilities. It Takes Intellectual Daring To Discover The Truth.

In All Judgements By Which We Describe Anything As Beautiful, We Allow No One To Be Of Another Opinion.

The Light Dove, In Free Flight Cutting Through The Air The Resistance Of Which It Feels, Could Get The Idea That It Could Do Even Better In Airless Space. Likewise, Plato Abandoned The World Of The Senses Because It Posed So Many Hindrances For The Understanding, And Dared To Go Beyond It On The Wings Of The Ideas, In The Empty Space Of Pure Understanding.

Thrift Is Care And Scruple In The Spending Of One's Means. It Is Not A Virtue And It Requires Neither Skill Nor Talent.

We Can Judge The Heart Of A Man By His Treatment Of Animals.

God, Freedom, And Immortality Are Untenable In The Light Of Pure Reason.

What Are The Aims Which Are At The Same Time Duties? They Are Perfecting Of Ourselves, The Happiness Of Others.

Self Improvement

The Nice Thing About Living In A Small Town Is That When You Don't Know What You're Doing, Someone Else Does.

Time Is Not An Empirical Concept. For Neither Co-existence Nor Succession Would Be Perceived By Us, If The Representation Of Time Did Not Exist As A Foundation A Priori.

Words Of Wisdom

Among All Nations, Through The Darkest Polytheism Glimmer Some Faint Sparks Of Monotheism.

There Is A Limit Where The Intellect Fails And Breaks Down, And This Limit Is Where The Questions Concerning God And Freewill And Immortality Arise.

Imagination Is A Powerful Agent For Creating, As It Were, A Second Nature Out Of The Material Supplied To It By Actual Nature.

The Wise Man Can Change His Mind; The Stubborn One, Never.

If A Man Is Often The Subject Of Conversation He Soon Becomes The Subject Of Criticism.

Two Things Awe Me Most, The Starry Sky Above Me And The Moral Law Within Me.

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.

For Peace To Reign On Earth, Humans Must Evolve Into New Beings Who Have Learned To See The Whole First.

To Be Beneficent When We Can Is A Duty; And Besides This, There Are Many Minds So Sympathetically Constituted That, Without Any Other Motive Of Vanity Or Self-interest, They Find A Pleasure In Spreading Joy Around Them, And Can Take Delight In The Satisfaction Of Others So Far As It Is Their Own Work. But I Maintain That In Such A Case An Action Of This Kind, However Proper, However Amiable It May Be, Has Nevertheless No True Moral Worth, But Is On A Level With Other Inclinations. . . . For The Maxim Lacks The Moral Import, Namely, That Such Actions Be Done From Duty, Not From Inclination.

There Will Always Be Some People Who Think For Themselves, Even Among The Self-appointed Guardians Of The Great Mass Who, After Having Thrown Off The Yoke Of Immaturity Themselves, Will Spread About Them The Spirit Of A Reasonable Estimate Of Their Own Value And Of The Need For Every Man To Think For Himself.

Everything In Nature Acts In Conformity With Law.

When A Thoughtful Human Being Has Overcome Incentives To Vice And Is Aware Of Having Done His Bitter Duty, He Finds Himself In A State That Could Be Called Happiness, A State Of Contentment And Peace Of Mind In Which Virtue Is Its Own Reward.

If It Were Possible For Us To Have So Deep An Insight Into A Man's Character As Shown Both In Inner And In Outer Actions, That Every, Even The Least, Incentive To These Actions And All External Occasions Which Affect Them Were So Known To Us That His Future Conduct Could Be Predicted With As Great A Certainty As The Occurrence Of A Solar Or Lunar Eclipse, We Could Nevertheless Still Assert That The Man Is Free.

A Lie Is The Abandonment And, As It Were, The Annihilation Of The Dignity By Man.

Always Regard Every Man As An End In Himself, And Never Use Him Merely As A Means To Your Ends [i.e., Respect That Each Person Has A Life And Purpose That Is Their Own; Do Not Treat People As Objects To Be Exploited].

I Shall Never Forget My Mother, For It Was She Who Planted And Nurtured The First Seeds Of Good Within Me. She Opened My Heart To The Lasting Impressions Of Nature; She Awakened My Understanding And Extended My Horizon And Her Percepts Exerted An Everlasting Influence Upon The Course Of My Life.

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.

The Busier We Are, The More Acutely We Feel That We Live, The More Conscious We Are Of Life.

A Categorical Imperative Would Be One Which Represented An Action As Objectively Necessary In Itself, Without Reference To Any Other Purpose.

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.

That Logic Has Advanced In This Sure Course, Even From The Earliest Times, Is Apparent From The Fact That, Since Aristotle, It Has Been Unable To Advance A Step, And Thus To All Appearance Has Reached Its Completion.

Both Love Of Mankind, And Respect For Their Rights Are Duties; The Former However Is Only A Conditional, The Latter An Unconditional, Purely Imperative Duty, Which He Must Be Perfectly Certain Not To Have Transgressed Who Would Give Himself Up To The Secret Emotions Arising From Benevolence.

Happiness, Though An Indefinite Concept, Is The Goal Of All Rational Beings

Criticism Alone Can Sever The Root Of Materialism, Fatalism, Atheism, Free-thinking, Fanaticism, And Superstition, Which Can Be Injurious Universally; As Well As Of Idealism And Skepticism, Which Are Dangerous Chiefly To The Schools, And Hardly Allow Of Being Handed On To The Public.

All Natural Capacities Of A Creature Are Destined To Evolve Completely To Their Natural End.

If We Knew That God Exists, Such Knowledge Would Make Morality Impossible. For, If We Acted Morally From Fear Or Fright, Or Confident Of A Reward, Then This Would Not Be Moral. It Would Be Enlightened Selfishness.

A Single Line In The Bible Has Consoled Me More Than All The Books I Ever Read Besides.

Always Recognize That Human Individuals Are Ends, And Do Not Use Them As Means To Your End.

I Ought Never To Act Except In Such A Way That I Could Also Will That My Maxim Should Become A Universal Law.

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.

Two Things Fill The Mind With Ever New And Increasing Admiration And Awe, The More Often And Steadily We Reflect Upon Them: The Starry Heavens Above Me And The Moral Law Within Me. I Do Not Seek Or Conjecture Either Of Them As If They Were Veiled Obscurities Or Extravagances Beyond The Horizon Of My Vision; I See Them Before Me And Connect Them Immediately With The Consciousness Of My Existence.

Philosophy Stands In Need Of A Science Which Shall Determine The Possibility, Principles, And Extent Of Human Knowledge à Priori.

A Science Of All These Possible Kinds Of Space [the Higher Dimensional Ones] Would Undoubtedly Be The Highest Enterprise Which A Finite Understanding Could Undertake In The Field Of Geometry... If It Is Possible That There Could Be Regions With Other Dimensions, It Is Very Likely That God Has Somewhere Brought Them Into Being.

We Come No Nearer The Infinitude Of The Creative Power Of God, If We Enclose The Space Of Its Revelation Within A Sphere Described With The Radius Of The Milky Way, Than If We Were To Limit It To A Ball An Inch In Diameter. All That Is Finite, Whatever Has Limits And A Definite Relation To Unity, Is Equally Far Removed From The Infinite... Eternity Is Not Sufficient To Embrace The Manifestations Of The Supreme Being, If It Is Not Combined With The Infinitude Of Space.

Freedom Is The Alone Unoriginated Birthright Of Man, And Belongs To Him By Force Of His Humanity.

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.

Dare To Know! Have The Courage To Use Your Own Intelligence!

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.

Thoughts Without Content Are Empty, Intuitions Without Concepts Are Blind... The Understanding Can Intuit Nothing, The Senses Can Think Nothing. Only Through Their Union Can Knowledge Arise.

Act So That The Maxim Of Your Act Could Be Made The Principle Of A Universal Law.

A Man Who Has Tasted With Profound Enjoyment The Pleasure Of Agreeable Society Will Eat With A Greater Appetite Than He Who Rode Horseback For Two Hours. An Amusing Lecture Is As Useful For Health As The Exercise Of The Body.

There Is Nothing Higher Than Reason.

Categorical Imperative

Better The Whole People Perish Than That Injustice Be Done

Ours Is An Age Of Criticism, To Which Everything Must Be Subjected.

Duty Is The Necessity To Act Out Of Reverence For The Law.

If, Like Hume, I Had All Manner Of Adornment In My Power, I Would Still Have Reservations About Using Them. It Is True That Some Readers Will Be Scared Off By Dryness. But Isn't It Necessary To Scare Off Some If In Their Case The Matter Would End Up In Bad Hands?

Reason Can Never Prove The Existence Of God.

Freedom In The Practical Sense Is The Independence Of The Power Of Choice From Necessitation By Impulses Of Sensibility

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.

The Infinitude Of Creation Is Great Enough To Make A World, Or A Milky Way Of Worlds, Look In Comparison With It What A Flower Or An Insect Does In Comparison With The Earth.

Of All The Arts Poetry (which Owes Its Origin Almost Entirely To Genius And Will Least Be Guided By Precept Or Example) Maintains The First Rank.

The Business Of Philosophy Is Not To Give Rules, But To Analyze The Private Judgments Of Common Reason.

It Is The Land Of Truth (enchanted Name!), Surrounded By A Wide And Stormy Ocean, The True Home Of Illusion, Where Many A Fog Bank And Ice, That Soon Melts Away, Tempt Us To Believe In New Lands, While Constantly Deceiving The Adventurous Mariner With Vain Hopes, And Involving Him In Adventures Which He Can Never Leave, Yet Never Bring To An End.

There Are Two Things That Don't Have To Mean Anything, One Is Music And The Other Is Laughter.

Look Closely. The Beautiful May Be Small.

Act That Your Principle Of Action Might Safely Be Made A Law For The Whole World.

At Some Future Day It Will Be Proved, I Cannot Say When And Where, That The Human Soul Is, While In Earth Life, Already In An Uninterrupted Communication With Those Living In Another World.

Arrogance Is, As It Were, A Solicitation On The Part Of One Seeking Honor For Followers, Whom He Thinks He Is Entitled To Treat With Contempt.

Nature Has Willed That Man Should, By Himself, Produce Everything That Goes Beyond The Mechanical Ordering Of His Animal Existence, And That He Should Partake Of No Other Happiness Or Perfection Than That Which He Himself, Independently Of Instinct, Has Created By His Own Reason.

Others Happiness

After Death The Soul Possesses Self-consciousness, Otherwise, It Would Be The Subject Of Spiritual Death, Which Has Already Been Disproved. With This Self-consciousness Necessarily Remains Personality And The Consciousness Of Personal Identity.

The Human Heart Refuses To Believe In A Universe Without A Purpose.

An Organized Product Of Nature Is That In Which All The Parts Are Mutually Ends And Means.

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?

Innocence Is Indeed A Glorious Thing; But, Unfortunately, It Does Not Keep Very Well And Is Easily Led Astray.

Nothing Is Divine But What Is Agreeable To Reason.

It Is Not God's Will Merely That We Should Be Happy, But That We Should Make Ourselves Happy

Riches Ennoble A Man's Circumstances, But Not Himself.

Science Is Organized Knowledge. Wisdom Is Organized Life.

Beneficence Is A Duty; And He Who Frequently Practices It, And Sees His Benevolent Intentions Realized Comes, At Length, Really To Love Him To Whom He Has Done Good.

Three Things Tell A Man: His Eyes, His Friends And His Favorite Quotes

It Is Presumed That There Exists A Great Unity In Nature, In Respect Of The Adequacy Of A Single Cause To Account For Many Different Kinds Of Consequences.

I Freely Admit That The Remembrance Of David Hume Was The Very Thing That Many Years Ago First Interrupted My Dogmatic Slumber And Gave A Completely Different Direction To My Researches In The Field Of Speculative Philosophy.

The Sum Total Of All Possible Knowledge Of God Is Not Possible For A Human Being, Not Even Through A True Revelation. But It Is One Of The Worthiest Inquiries To See How Far Our Reason Can Go In The Knowledge Of God.

Knowledge Of God

Life Is The Faculty Of Spontaneous Activity, The Awareness That We Have Powers.

We Assume A Common Sense As The Necessary Condition Of The Universal Communicability Of Our Knowledge, Which Is Presupposed In Every Logic And Every Principle Of Knowledge That Is Not One Of Skepticism.

Maturity Is Having The Courage To Use One's Own Intelligence!

Animals... Are There Merely As A Means To An End. That End Is Man.

. . . As To Moral Feeling, This Supposed Special Sense, The Appeal To It Is Indeed Superficial When Those Who Cannot Think Believe That Feeling Will Help Them Out, Even In What Concerns General Laws: And Besides, Feelings Which Naturally Differ Infinitely In Degree Cannot Furnish A Uniform Standard Of Good And Evil, Nor Has Any One A Right To Form Judgments For Others By His Own Feelings. . . .

If Justice Perishes, Human Life On Earth Has Lost Its Meaning.

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.

The Yellow Indians Do Have A Meagre Talent. The Negroes Are Far Below Them, And At The Lowest Point Are A Part Of The American People.

If An Offender Has Committed Murder, He Must Die. In This Case, No Possible Substitute Can Satisfy Justice. For There Is No Parallel Between Death And Even The Most Miserable Life, So That There Is No Equality Of Crime And Retribution Unless The Perpetrator Is Judicially Put To Death.

In The Kingdom Of Ends Everything Has Either A Price Or A Dignity. Whatever Has A Price Can Be Replaced By Something Else As Its Equivalent; On The Other Hand, Whatever Is Above All Price, And Therefore Admits Of No Equivalent, Has A Dignity. But That Which Constitutes The Condition Under Which Alone Something Can Be An End In Itself Does Not Have Mere Relative Worth, I.e., Price, But An Intrinsic Worth, I.e., A Dignity.

You Only Know Me As You See Me, Not As I Actually Am

Enlightenment Is Man's Leaving His Self-caused Immaturity. Immaturity Is The Incapacity To Use One's Intelligence Without The Guidance Of Another. Such Immaturity Is Self-caused If It Is Not Caused By Lack Of Intelligence, But By Lack Of Determination And Courage To Use One's Intelligence Without Being Guided By Another. Sapere Aude! Have The Courage To Use Your Own Intelligence! Is Therefore The Motto Of The Enlightenment.

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.

Freedom Is Independence Of The Compulsory Will Of Another, And In So Far As It Tends To Exist With The Freedom Of All According To A Universal Law, It Is The One Sole Original Inborn Right Belonging To Every Man In Virtue Of His Humanity.

I Learned To Honor Human Beings, And I Would Find Myself Far More Useless Than The Common Laborer If I Did Not Believe That This Consideration Could Impart To All Others A Value Establishing The Rights Of Humanity.

Beneficence Is A Duty. He Who Frequently Practices It, And Sees His Benevolent Intentions Realized, At Length Comes Really To Love Him To Whom He Has Done Good. When, Therefore, It Is Said, "thou Shalt Love Thy Neighbor As Thyself," It Is Not Meant, Thou Shalt Love Him First And Do Him Good In Consequence Of That Love, But, Thou Shalt Do Good To Thy Neighbor; And This Thy Beneficence Will Engender In Thee That Love To Mankind Which Is The Fulness And Consummation Of The Inclination To Do Good.

Psychologists Have Hitherto Failed To Realize That Imagination Is A Necessary Ingredient Of Perception Itself.

In Every Department Of Physical Science There Is Only So Much Science, Properly So-called, As There Is Mathematics.

Every Human Being Should Always Be Treated As An End And Never As A Mere Instrument.

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.

The Only Thing Permanent Is Change.

The Arts Of Speech Are Rhetoric And Poetry. Rhetoric Is The Art Of Transacting A Serious Business Of The Understanding As If It Were A Free Play Of The Imagination; Poetry That Of Conducting A Free Play Of The Imagination As If It Were A Serious Business Of The Understanding.

Heaven Has Given Human Beings Three Things To Balance The Odds Of Life: Hope, Sleep, And Laughter.

Act In Such A Way That You Treat Humanity, Whether In Your Own Person Or In The Person Of Any Other, Never Merely As A Means To An End, But Always At The Same Time As An End.

It Is By His Activities And Not By Enjoyment That Man Feels He Is Alive. In Idleness We Not Only Feel That Life Is Fleeting, But We Also Feel Lifeless.

Upon The Solution Of This Problem, Or Upon Sufficient Proof Of The Impossibility Of Synthetical Knowledge A Priori, Depends The Existence Or Downfall Of Metaphysics.

Words Of Wisdom

Perhaps A Revolution Can Overthrow Autocratic Despotism And Profiteering Or Power-grabbing Oppression, But It Can Never Truly Reform A Manner Of Thinking; Instead, New Prejudices, Just Like The Old Ones They Replace, Will Serve As A Leash For The Great Unthinking Mass.

The Greatest Problem For The Human Species, The Solution Of Which Nature Compels Him To Seek, Is That Of Attaining A Civil Society Which Can Administer Justice Universally.

Natural Science Physics Contains In Itself Synthetical Judgments A Priori, As Principles. ... Space Then Is A Necessary Representation A Priori, Which Serves For The Foundation Of All External Intuitions.

Words Of Wisdom

Freedom Can Never Be Comprehended, Nor Even Can Insight Into It Be Gained.

The Wish To Talk To God Is Absurd. We Cannot Talk To One We Cannot Comprehend — And We Cannot Comprehend God; We Can Only Believe In Him.

I Feel A Complete Thirst For Knowledge And An Eager Unrest To Go Further In It As Well As Satisfaction At Every Acquisition. There Was A Time When I Believed That This Alone Could Constitute The Honor Of Mankind, And I Had Contempt For The Ignorant Rabble Who Know Nothing.

Human Freedom Is Realised In The Adoption Of Humanity As An End In Itself, For The One Thing That No-one Can Be Compelled To Do By Another Is To Adopt A Particular End. - 'metaphysical Principles Of Virtue

With Men, The State Of Nature Is Not A State Of Peace, But War.

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