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

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

Understanding the Quote: "freedom in the practical sense is the independence of the power of..."

This quote by Immanuel Kant reflects deeply on the theme of choices. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Choices, Independence, Human Nature, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Immanuel Kant interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant is celebrated for insightful thoughts on choices and independence. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Choices
Independence
Human Nature
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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.
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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.
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The History Of The Human Race, Viewed As A Whole, May Be Regarded As The Realization Of A Hidden Plan Of Nature To Bring About A Political Constitution, Internally, And For This Purpose, Also Externally Perfect, As The Only State In Which All The Capacities Implanted By Her In Mankind Can Be Fully Developed.
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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.
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So Act That Anything You Do May Become Universal Law.
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Animal
Men
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Knowledge
Science
Act Only According To That Maxim Whereby You Can At The Same Time Will That It Should Become A Universal Law.
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Should
Genius Is The Ability To Independently Arrive At And Understand Concepts That Would Normally Have To Be Taught By Another Person.
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Ability
Ingratitude Is The Essence Of Vileness.
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Essence
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Inspirational
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Understanding
Sublime
Reason
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Done
Charity
It Is Not God's Will Merely That We Should Be Happy, But That We Should Make Ourselves Happy
Happiness
Happy
God
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.
Art
Divorce
Garden
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 Advantage To Himself.
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Men
Naughty
The Means Employed By Nature To Bring About The Development Of All The Capacities Of Men Is Their Antagonism In Society, So Far As This Is, In The End, The Cause Of A Lawful Order Among Men.
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Men
Order
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.
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The Possession Of Power Inevitably Spoils The Free Use Of Reason.
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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?
Philosophy
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May
Thrift Is Care And Scruple In The Spending Of One's Means. It Is Not A Virtue And It Requires Neither Skill Nor Talent.
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Skills
Care
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.
Humanity
Als
Made
Notion Without Intuition Is Empty, Intuition Without Notion Is Blind.
Intuition
Blind
Empty
[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.
Men
Rights
Way
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.
Spiritual
Self
Personality
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.
Nature
Fate
Peculiar
Procrastination Is Hardly More Evil Than Grasping Impatience.
Procrastination
Evil
Impatience
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.
Mean
Humanity
Way
Reason Can Never Prove The Existence Of God.
Atheism
Reason
Existence
[r]eason Is... Given To Us As A Practical Faculty, That Is, As One That Influences The Will.
Psychology
Action
Moral
Feminine Traits Are Called Weaknesses. People Joke About Them; Fools Ridicule Them; But Reasonable Persons See Very Well That Those Traits Are Just The Tools For The Management Of Men, And For The Use Of Men For Female Designs.
Men
People
Design
[aristotle Formal Logic Thus Far (1787)] Has Not Been Able To Advance A Single Step, And Hence Is To All Appearances Closed And Completed.
Able
Steps
Logic
Always Recognize That Human Individuals Are Ends, And Do Not Use Them As Means To Your End.
Inspirational
Relationship
Integrity
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.
Philosophical
Race
Work Out
Everything In Nature Acts In Conformity With Law.
Nature
Law
Conformity
Apart From Moral Conduct, All That Man Thinks Himself Able To Do In Order To Become Acceptable To God Is Mere Superstition And Religious Folly.
Religious
Men
Thinking
In The Mere Concept Of One Thing It Cannot Be Found Any Character Of Its Existence.
Character
Found
Existence
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.'
Peace
War
Evil
Do What Is Right, Though The World May Perish.
World
May
No State At War With Another State Should Engage In Hostilities Of Such A Kind As To Render Mutual Confidence Impossible When Peace Will Have Been Made.
War
Impossible
Kind
Human Reason Is By Nature Architectonic.
Nature
Reason
Humans
Laws Always Lose In Energy What The Government Gains In Extent.
Government
Law
Liberty
The Existence Of The Bible Is The Greatest Blessing Which Humanity Ever Experienced.
Blessing
Humanity
Existence
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?
Philosophical
Hands
Scare
[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.
Grief
Fate
Psychology
The Only Thing That Is Good Without Qualification Is A Good Will.
Qualifications
Good Will
There Is No Virtue In Penance And Fasting Which Waste The Body; They Are Only Fanatical And Monkish.
Waste
Penance
Fasting
Act So As To Use Humanity, Yourself And Others, Always As An End And Never As A Means To An End.
Mean
Humanity
Use
Philosophical Knowledge Is The Knowledge Gained By Reason From Concepts ; Mathematical Knowledge Is The Knowledge Gained By Reason From The Construction Of Concepts.
Philosophical
Construction
Reason
What Can I Know? What Ought I To Do? What May I Hope?
Hope
Philosophical
Ought
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.
Work
Vanity
Self
Every Human Being Should Always Be Treated As An End And Never As A Mere Instrument.
Instruments
Ends
Should
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!
Immature
Immaturity
Roles
An Action Is Essentially Good If The Motive Of The Agent Be Good, Regardless Of The Consequences.
Agents
Action
Goodness
Freedom Is That Faculty That Enlarges The Usefulness Of All Other Faculties.
Anarchy
Cannabis
Faculty
If I Am To Constrain You By Any Law, It Must Be One By Which I Am Also Bound.
Law
Constrain
Ifs
The Universal And Lasting Establishment Of Peace Constitutes Not Merely A Part, But The Whole Final Purpose And End Of The Science Of Right As Viewed Within The Limits Of Reason.
Peace
Science
Finals
Have The Courage To Use Your Own Reason- That Is The Motto Of Enlightenment. "foundations Of The Metaphysics Of Morals" (1785)
Enlightenment
Foundation
Use
Immaturity Is The Incapacity To Use One's Intelligence Without The Guidance Of Another.
Maturity
Divine Guidance
Intelligence
Democracy Is Necessarily Despotism, As It Establishes An Executive Power Contrary To The General Will; All Being Able To Decide Against One Whose Opinion May Differ, The Will Of All Is Therefore Not That Of All: Which Is Contradictory And Opposite To Liberty.
Opposites
Liberty
Democracy
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.
Space
Understanding
Fields
Prudence Reproaches; Conscience Accuses.
Courage
Prudence
Reproach
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].
Mean
Men
People
The Busier We Are, The More Acutely We Feel That We Live, The More Conscious We Are Of Life.
Life
Conscious
Busier
Cruelty To Animals Is Contrary To Man's Duty To Himself, Because It Deadens In Him The Feeling Of Sympathy For Their Sufferings, And Thus A Natural Tendency That Is Very Useful To Morality In Relation To Other Human Beings Is Weakened.
Philosophical
Animal
Men
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.
Law
Ideas
Rights
Give A Man Everything He Wants And At That Moment Everything Is Not Everything
Men
Giving
Want
We Can Judge The Heart Of A Man By His Treatment Of Animals.
Dog
Heart
Animal
It Is Difficult For The Isolated Individual To Work Himself Out Of The Immaturity Which Has Become Almost Natural For Him.
Immaturity
Individual
Natural
Life Is The Faculty Of Spontaneous Activity, The Awareness That We Have Powers.
Action
Life Is
Awareness
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.
Simple
Two
Doe
Rules For Happiness: Something To Do, Someone To Love, Something To Hope For.
Inspirational
Motivational
Happiness
Prudence Approaches, Conscience Accuses.
War
Prudence
Approach
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.
Sex
Views
Two
One Who Makes Himself A Worm Cannot Complain Afterwards If People Step On Him.
Inspirational
Change
Wisdom
All Our Knowledge Falls With The Bounds Of Experience.
Fall
Bounds
Suicide Is Not Abominable Because God Prohibits It; God Prohibits It Because It Is Abominable.
Death
Suicide
Suicidal
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