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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.

-Immanuel Kant

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Since The Narrower Or

Immanuel Kant

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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.

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So Act That Anything You Do May Become Universal Law.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Nothing Is Divine But What Is Agreeable To Reason.

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.

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

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.

Reason Can Never Prove The Existence Of God.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

***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

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.

Prudence Reproaches; Conscience Accuses.

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

Do The Right Thing Because It Is Right.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

All Perception Is Colored By Emotion.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

The Only Thing Permanent Is Change.

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.

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?

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Human Reason Is By Nature Architectonic.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

The Possession Of Power Inevitably Spoils The Free Use Of Reason.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Honesty Is Better Than Any Policy.

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.

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.

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

Procrastination Is Hardly More Evil Than Grasping Impatience.

Procrastination

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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!

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

Art Is Purposiveness Without Purpose.

There Is Something Splendid About Innocence; But What Is Bad About It, In Turn, Is That It Cannot Protect Itself Very Well And Is Easily Seduced.

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

Ingratitude Is The Essence Of Vileness.

Inspirational Christmas

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?

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.

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.'

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

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

The Death Of Dogma Is The Birth Of Morality.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Division Of Labor

There 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).

Great Minds Think For Themselves.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

I 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.

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

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

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

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

. . . 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. . . .

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Do What Is Right, Though The World May Perish.

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.

Everything In Nature Acts In Conformity With Law.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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?

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