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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.

-Immanuel Kant

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I Shall Never Forget

Immanuel Kant

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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.

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More From Immanuel Kant

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Ingratitude Is The Essence Of Vileness.

Inspirational Christmas

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.

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

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

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].

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.

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!

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.

In The Metaphysical Elements Of Aesthetics The Various Nonmoral Feelings Are To Be Made Use Of; In The Elements Of Moral Metaphysics The Various Moral Feelings Of Men, According To The Differences In Sex, Age, Education, And Government, Of Races And Climates, Are To Be Employed.

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

There Is Nothing Higher Than Reason.

Categorical Imperative

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

The Greatest Human Quest Is To Know What One Must Do In Order To Become A Human Being.

Art Is Purposiveness Without Purpose.

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

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

By A Lie, A Man... Annihilates His Dignity As A Man.

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.

The Only Thing That Is Good Without Qualification Is A Good Will.

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

Honesty Is Better Than Any Policy.

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

Ghost Stories Are Always Listened To And Well Received In Private, But Pitilessly Disavowed In Public. For My Own Part, Ignorant As I Am Of The Way In Which The Human Spirit Enters The World And The Way In Which He Goes Out Of It, I Dare Not Deny The Truth Of Many Such Narratives.

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.

The Only Thing Permanent Is Change.

I Am Myself By Inclination An Investigator.

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.

Why Were A Few, Or A Single One, Made At All, If Only To Exist In Order To Be Made Eternally Miserable, Which Is Infinitely Worse Than Non-existence?

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

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

Nature Even In Chaos Cannot Proceed Otherwise Than Regularly And According To Order.

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

To A High Degree We Are, Through Art And Science, Cultured. We Are Civilized - Perhaps Too Much For Our Own Good - In All Sorts Of Social Grace And Decorum. But To Consider Ourselves As Having Reached Morality - For That, Much Is Lacking.

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.

[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.

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.

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.

Great Minds Think For Themselves.

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

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.'

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

He Who Has Made Great Moral Progress Ceases To Pray

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

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

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.'

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Two Things Strike Me Dumb: The Infinite Starry Heavens, And The Sense Of Right And Wrong In Man.

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

Immaturity Is The Incapacity To Use One's Intelligence Without The Guidance Of Another.

Divine Guidance

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.

Laws Always Lose In Energy What The Government Gains In Extent.

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

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

Perpetual Peace Is Only Found In The Graveyard.

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.

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

Standing Armies Shall In Time Be Totally Abolished.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Physicians Think They Are Doing Something For You By Labeling What You Have As A Disease

Do The Right Thing Because It Is Right.

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

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.

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.

We Are Not Rich By What We Possess But By What We Can Do Without.

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.

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

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.

Better The Whole People Perish Than That Injustice Be Done

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

For How Is It Possible, Says That Acute Man, That When A Concept Is Given Me, I Can Go Beyond It And Connect With It Another Which Is Not Contained In It, In Such A Manner As If That Latter Necessarily Belonged To The Former?

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

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

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.

Notion Without Intuition Is Empty, Intuition Without Notion Is Blind.

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

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

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).

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

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

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

We Can Never, Even By The Strictest Examination, Get Completely Behind The Secret Springs Of Action.

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

I Have No Knowledge Of Myself As I Am, But Merely As I Appear To Myself.

Nothing Is Divine But What Is Agreeable To Reason.

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 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.

Science Is Organized Knowledge. Wisdom Is Organized Life.

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.

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

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

The Hand Is The Visible Part Of The Brain.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Reason Can Never Prove The Existence Of God.

Do What Is Right, Though The World May Perish.

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).

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 Me And The Moral Law Within Me.

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.

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

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?

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

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

The Only Objects Of Practical Reason Are Therefore Those Of Good And Evil. For By The Former Is Meant An Object Necessarily Desired According To A Principle Of Reason; By The Latter One Necessarily Shunned, Also According To A Principle Of Reason.

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.

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.

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

Reason Should Investigate Its Own Parameters Before Declaring Its Omniscience.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Melancholy Characterizes Those With A Superb Sense Of The Sublime.

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

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.

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

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

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!

It Is Often Necessary To Make A Decision On The Basis Of Knowledge Sufficient For Action But Insufficient To Satisfy The Intellect.

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

Self Improvement

It Is Precisely In Knowing Its Limits That Philosophy Consists.

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

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.

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.

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

[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.

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.

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

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.

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.

So Act That Anything You Do May Become Universal Law.

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?

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

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

One Cannot Avoid A Certain Feeling Of Disgust, When One Observes The Actions Of Man Displayed On The Great Stage Of The World. Wisdom Is Manifested By Individuals Here And There; But The Web Of Human History As A Whole Appears To Be Woven From Folly And Childish Vanity, Often, Too, From Puerile Wickedness And Love Of Destruction: With The Result That At The End One Is Puzzled To Know What Idea To Form Of Our Species Which Prides Itself So Much On Its Advantages.

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.

Look Closely. The Beautiful May Be Small.

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.

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.

All Our Knowledge Falls With The Bounds Of Experience.

The Inscrutable Wisdom Through Which We Exist Is Not Less Worthy Of Veneration In Respect To What It Denies Us Than In Respect To What It Has Granted.

All Perception Is Colored By Emotion.

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Donald L. Carcieri

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