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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.

-Immanuel Kant

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I Freely Admit That

Immanuel Kant

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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.

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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.

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.

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

I Am Myself By Inclination An Investigator.

Nature, When Left To Universal Laws, Tends To Produce Regularity Out Of Chaos.

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

When I Could Have Used A Wife, I Could Not Support One; And When I Could Support One, I No Longer Needed Any

The Only Thing Permanent Is Change.

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

Have Patience Awhile; Slanders Are Not Long-lived. Truth Is The Child Of Time; Erelong She Shall Appear To Vindicate Thee.

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.

Man's Greatest Concern Is To Know How He Shall Properly Fill His Place In The Universe And Correctly Understand What He Must Be In Order To Be A Man.

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

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 Possession Of Power Inevitably Spoils The Free Use Of Reason.

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

If We Could See Ourselves... As We Really Are, We Should See Ourselves In A World Of Spiritual Natures, Our Community Which Neither Began At Birth Nor Will End With The Death Of The Body.

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.

All Perception Is Colored By Emotion.

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

Is It Reasonable To Assume A Purposiveness In All The Parts Of Nature And To Deny It To The Whole?

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.

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.

Enlightenment Is The Liberation Of Man From His Self-caused State Of Minority... Supere Aude! Dare To Use Your Own Understanding!is Thus The Motto Of The Enlightenment.

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.

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

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.

The Instruction Of Children Should Aim Gradually To Combine Knowing And Doing. Among All Sciences Mathematics Seems To Be The Only One Of A Kind To Satisfy This Aim Most Completely.

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

***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

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.

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.

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

It Is Precisely In Knowing Its Limits That Philosophy Consists.

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

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.

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

Man Relates To Material Things Through Direct Insight Rather Than Reason.

Better The Whole People Perish Than That Injustice Be Done

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

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.

Reason Must Approach Nature In Order To Be Taught By It. It Must Not, However, Do So In The Character Of A Pupil Who Listens To Everything That The Teacher Chooses To Say, But Of An Appointed Judge Who Compels The Witness To Answer Questions Which He Has Himself Formulated.

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.

The Enjoyment Of Power Inevitably Corrupts The Judgment Of Reason, And Perverts Its Liberty.

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.

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

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

Self Improvement

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.

Our Intellect Does Not Draw Its Laws From Nature, But It Imposes Its Laws Upon Nature.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.'

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

Nothing Is Divine But What Is Agreeable To Reason.

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

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.

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.

One Is Not Rich By What One Owns, But More By What One Is Able To Do Without With Dignity.

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.

But A Lie Is A Lie, And In Itself Intrinsically Evil, Whether It Be Told With Good Or Bad Intents.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

If Education Is To Develop Human Nature So That It May Attain The Object Of Its Being, It Must Involve The Exercise Of Judgment.

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.'

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.

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.

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.

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

Prudence Reproaches; Conscience Accuses.

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.

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

Have The Courage To Use Your Own Reason- That Is The Motto Of Enlightenment. "foundations Of The Metaphysics Of Morals" (1785)

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.

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

Deaths, Births, And Marriages, Considering How Much They Are Separately Dependent On The Freedom Of The Human Will, Should Seem To Be Subject To No Law According To Which Any Calculation Could Be Made Beforehand Of Their Amount; And Yet The Yearly Registers Of These Events In Great Countries Prove That They Go On With As Much Conformity To The Laws Of Nature As The Oscillations Of The Weather.

Manners Or Etiquette ('accessibility, Affability, Politeness, Refinement, Propriety, Courtesy, And Ingratiating And Captivating Behavior') Call For No Large Measure Of Moral Determination And Cannot, Therefore, Be Reckoned As Virtues. Even Though Manners Are No Virtues, They Are A Means Of Developing Virtue.... The More We Refine The Crude Elements In Our Nature, The More We Improve Our Humanity And The More Capable It Grows Of Feeling The Driving Force Of Virtuous Principles.

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.

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

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

[aristotle Formal Logic Thus Far (1787)] Has Not Been Able To Advance A Single Step, And Hence Is To All Appearances Closed And Completed.

Two Things Fill The Mind With Ever New And Increasing Admiration And Awe, The Oftener And More Steadily We Reflect On Them: The Starry Heavens Above And The Moral Law Within.

It Is Through Good Education That All The Good In The World Arises.

There Is Needed, No Doubt, A Body Of Servants (ministerium) Of The Invisible Church, But Not Officials (officiales), In Other Words, Teachers But Not Dignitaries, Because In The Rational Religion Of Every Individual There Does Not Yet Exist A Church As A Universal Union (omnitudo Collectiva).

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.

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

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

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.

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

Procrastination Is Hardly More Evil Than Grasping Impatience.

Procrastination

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

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.

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

Act So As To Use Humanity, Yourself And Others, Always As An End And Never As A Means To An End.

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

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

Enlightenment Is Man's Emergence From His Self-imposed Nonage. Nonage Is The Inability To Use One's Own Understanding Without Another's Guidance. This Nonage Is Self-imposed If Its Cause Lies Not In Lack Of Understanding But In Indecision And Lack Of Courage To Use One's Own Mind Without Another's Guidance. Dare To Know!

Thinking In Pictures Precedes Thinking In Words.

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.

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

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

Everything In Nature Acts In Conformity With Law.

[r]eason Is... Given To Us As A Practical Faculty, That Is, As One That Influences The Will.

Laziness And Cowardice Explain Why So Many Men. . . Remain Under A Life-long Tutelage And Why It Is So Easy For Some Men To Set Themselves Up As The Guardians Of All The Rest. . . If I Have A Book Which Understands For Me, A Pastor Who Has A Conscience For Me, A Doctor Who Decides My Diet, I Need Not Trouble Myself. If I Am Willing To Pay, I Need Not Think. Others Will Do It For Me.

The Function Of The True State Is To Impose The Minimum Restrictions And Safeguard The Maximum Liberties Of The People, And It Never Regards The Person As A Thing.

The Question Is Not So Much Whether There Is Life On Mars As Whether It Will Continue To Be Possible To Live On Earth

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

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.

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.

If I Am To Constrain You By Any Law, It Must Be One By Which I Am Also Bound.

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

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

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.

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

Freedom Is That Faculty That Enlarges The Usefulness Of All Other Faculties.

Beneficence Is A Duty.

Melancholy Characterizes Those With A Superb Sense Of The Sublime.

God Put A Secret Art Into The Forces Of Nature So As To Enable It To Fashion Itself Out Of Chaos Into A Perfect World System.

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

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.

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

Physicians Think They Do A Lot For A Patient When They Give His Disease A Name.

Aristotle Can Be Regarded As The Father Of Logic. But His Logic Is Too Scholastic, Full Of Subtleties, And Fundamentally Has Not Been Of Much Value To The Human Understanding. It Is A Dialectic And An Organon For The Art Of Disputation.

All Our Knowledge Falls With The Bounds Of Experience.

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

Always Treat People As Ends In Themselves, Never As Means To An End.

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.

Two Things Fill The Mind With Ever-increasing Wonder And Awe, The More Often And The More Intensely The Mind Of Thought Is Drawn To Them: The Starry Heavens Above Me And The Moral Law Within Me... Morality Is Not Properly The Doctrine Of How We May Make Ourselves Happy, But How We May Make Ourselves Worthy Of Happiness.

[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.

. . . 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. . . .

Patience Is The Strength Of The Weak, Impatience Is The Weakness Of The Strong.

Man Must Be Disciplined, For He Is By Nature Raw And Wild.

The Hand Is The Visible Part Of The Brain.

By A Lie A Man Throws Away And, As It Were, Annihilates His Dignity As A Man. A Man Who Himself Does Not Believe What He Tells Another ... Has Even Less Worth Than If He Were A Mere Thing. ... Makes Himself A Mere Deceptive Appearance Of Man, Not Man Himself.

We Find That The More A Cultivated Reason Devotes Itself To The Aim Of Enjoying Life And Happiness, The Further Does Man Get Away From True Contentment.

All Our Knowledge Begins With The Senses...

Categorical Imperative

Give A Man Everything He Wants And At That Moment Everything Is Not Everything

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

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.

Parents Usually Educate Their Children Merely In Such A Manner Than However Bad The World May Be, They May Adapt Themselves To Its Present Conditions. But They Ought To Give Them An Education So Much Better Than This, That A Better Condition Of Things May Thereby Be Brought About By The Future.

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.

Enlightenment Is Man's Emergence From His Self-imposed Immaturity...no Thing Is Required For This Enlightenment.. .except Freedom; And The Freedom In Question Is The Least Harmful Of All, Namely, The Freedom To Use Reason Publicly In All Matters.

Metaphysics Is A Dark Ocean Without Shores Or Lighthouse, Strewn With Many A Philosophic Wreck.

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

Look Closely. The Beautiful May Be Small.

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?

Science Is Organized Knowledge. Wisdom Is Organized Life.

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.

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

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.

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

Give Me Matter, And I Will Construct A World Out Of It!

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

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 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.

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

The Bad Thing Of War Is, That It Makes More Evil People Than It Can Take Away.

No-one Can Compel Me To Be Happy In Accordance With His Conception Of The Welfare Of Others, For Each May Seek His Happiness In Whatever Way He Sees Fit, So Long As He Does Not Infringe Upon The Freedom Of Others To Pursue A Similar End Which Can Be Reconciled With The Freedom Of Everyone Else Within A Workable General Law ? I.e. He Must Accord To Others The Same Right As He Enjoys Himself.

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

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

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

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

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.

It Is Never Too Late To Become Reasonable And Wise.

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

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.

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.

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

But Only He Who, Himself Enlightened, Is Not Afraid Of Shadows.

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

All False Art, All Vain Wisdom, Lasts Its Time But Finally Destroys Itself, And Its Highest Culture Is Also The Epoch Of Its Decay.

There Is No Virtue In Penance And Fasting Which Waste The Body; They Are Only Fanatical And Monkish.

Space And Time Are The Framework Within Which The Mind Is Constrained To Construct Its Experience Of Reality.

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.

Religion Is Too Important A Matter To Its Devotees To Be A Subject Of Ridicule. If They Indulge In Absurdities, They Are To Be Pitied Rather Than Ridiculed.

All Human Knowledge Begins With Intuitions, Proceeds From Thence To Concepts, And Ends With Ideas.

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

Our Knowledge Springs From Two Fundamental Sources Of The Mind; The First Is The Capacity Of Receiving Representations (receptivity For Impressions), The Second Is The Power Of Knowing An Object Through These Representations (spontaneity [in The Production] Of Concepts).

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

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

Knowledge Experience

Knowledge And Experience

The Ultimate Destiny Of The Human Race Is The Greatest Moral Perfection, Provided That It Is Achieved Through Human Freedom, Whereby Alone Man Is Capable Of The Greatest Happiness.

An Action, To Have Moral Worth, Must Be Done From Duty.

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].

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

Law And Freedom Without Violence (anarchy) Law And Violence Without Freedom (despotism) Violence Without Freedom And Law (barbarism) Violence With Freedom And Law (republic)

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.

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

Freedom Is The Alone Unoriginated Birthright Of Man, And Belongs To Him By Force Of His Humanity; And Is Independence On The Will And Co-action Of Every Other In So Far As This Consists With Every Other Person's Freedom.

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.

Live Your Life As Though Your Every Act Were To Become A Universal Law.

Out Of The Crooked Timber Of Humanity, No Straight Thing Was Ever Made.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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Fantasia Barrino

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