Background Image

...

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.

-Immanuel Kant

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Laziness And Cowardice Explain

Immanuel Kant

...

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.

Views: 10

Topic

More From Immanuel Kant

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

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

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.

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.

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

Reason Can Never Prove The Existence Of God.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Do What Is Right, Though The World May Perish.

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

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.

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

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

It Is Never Too Late To Become Reasonable And Wise.

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.

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.

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.

It Is Precisely In Knowing Its Limits That Philosophy Consists.

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

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

Human Reason Is By Nature Architectonic.

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

***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 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.

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.

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

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

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

This Spirit Of Freedom Is Expanding Even Where It Must Struggle Against The External Obstacles Of Governments That Misunderstand Their Own Function. Such Governments Are Illuminated By The Example That The Existence Of Freedom Need Not Give Cause For The Least Concern Regarding Public Order And Harmony In The Commonwealth. If Only They Refrain From Inventing Artifices To Keep Themselves In It, Men Will Gradually Raise Themselves From Barbarism.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

All Appearances Are Real And Negatio; Sophistical: All Reality Must Be Sensation.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

The Only Thing Permanent Is Change.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Do The Right Thing Because It Is Right.

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

Melancholy Characterizes Those With A Superb Sense Of The Sublime.

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

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.

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

. . . 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. . . .

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Ingratitude Is The Essence Of Vileness.

Inspirational Christmas

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.

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.

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

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

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

Reason Should Investigate Its Own Parameters Before Declaring Its Omniscience.

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

I Am Myself By Inclination An Investigator.

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

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 Therefore Correct To Say That The Senses Do Not Err — Not Because They Always Judge Rightly, But Because They Do Not Judge At All.

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.

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.

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).

Better The Whole People Perish Than That Injustice Be Done

...as Soon As We Examine Suicide From The Standpoint Of Religion We Immediately See It In Its True Light. We Have Been Placed In This World Under Certain Conditions And For Specific Purposes. But A Suicide Opposes The Purpose Of His Creator; He Arrives In The Other World As One Who Has Deserted His Post; He Must Be Looked Upon As A Rebel Against God. God Is Our Owner; We Are His Property; His Providence Works For Our Good.

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

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.

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

Experience Without Theory Is Blind, But Theory Without Experience Is Mere Intellectual Play.

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.

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

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

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

Everything In Nature Acts In Conformity With 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.

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

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

Prudence Approaches, Conscience Accuses.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Thinking In Pictures Precedes Thinking In Words.

The Hand Is The Visible Part Of The Brain.

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.

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.

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

All Perception Is Colored By Emotion.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Thoughts Without Content Are Empty, Intuitions Without Concepts Are Blind.

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

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

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.

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

Honesty Is Better Than Any Policy.

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.

Maximum Individuality Within Maximum Community

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

Rules For Happiness: Something To Do, Someone To Love, Something To Hope For.

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.

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.

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.

Look Closely. The Beautiful May Be Small.

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.

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

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

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

[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.

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

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.

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

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

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].

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.

He Who Has Made Great Moral Progress Ceases To Pray

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Science Is Organized Knowledge. Wisdom Is Organized Life.

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.

Nothing Is Divine But What Is Agreeable To Reason.

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

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

Moral Teleology Supplies The Deficiency In Physical Teleology , And First Establishes A Theology ; Because The Latter, If It Did Not Borrow From The Former Without Being Observed, But Were To Proceed Consistently, Could Only Found A Demonology , Which Is Incapable Of Any Definite Concept.

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.

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

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.

Prudence Reproaches; Conscience Accuses.

In The Natural State No Concept Of God Can Arise, And The False One Which One Makes For Himself Is Harmful. Hence The Theory Of Natural Religion Can Be True Only Where There Is No Science; Therefore It Cannot Bind All Men Together.

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.

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

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

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

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

Trending Author

Mario Balotelli

Category