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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.

-Immanuel Kant

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The Desire Which A

Immanuel Kant

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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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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].

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

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

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

***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

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

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

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.

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.

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

Happiness, Though An Indefinite Concept, Is The Goal Of All Rational Beings

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.

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

Everything In Nature Acts In Conformity With Law.

There Is A Limit Where The Intellect Fails And Breaks Down, And This Limit Is Where The Questions Concerning God And Freewill And Immortality Arise.

The Hand Is The Visible Part Of The Brain.

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

All Our Knowledge Begins With The Senses...

Categorical Imperative

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

There Is Nothing Higher Than Reason.

Categorical Imperative

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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!

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

Knowledge Experience

Knowledge And Experience

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

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.

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.

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

Self Improvement

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?

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

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.

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.

[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.

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 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.

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

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

It Is Never Too Late To Become Reasonable And Wise.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

Reason In A Creature Is A Faculty Of Widening The Rules And Purposes Of The Use Of All Its Powers Far Beyond Natural Instinct; It Acknowledges No Limits To Its Projects. Reason Itself Does Not Work Instinctively, But Requires Trial, Practice, And Instruction In Order Gradually To Progress From One Level Of Insight To Another.

The 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 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.

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.

I Am Myself By Inclination An Investigator.

Standing Armies Shall In Time Be Totally Abolished.

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

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.

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

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?

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.

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

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.

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

Beneficence Is A Duty.

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

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

Honesty Is Better Than Any Policy.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Great Minds Think For Themselves.

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

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.

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

Human Reason Is By Nature Architectonic.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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).

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

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

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.

Procrastination Is Hardly More Evil Than Grasping Impatience.

Procrastination

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.

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

Science Is Organized Knowledge. Wisdom Is Organized Life.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

The Only Thing Permanent Is Change.

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

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

Nothing Is Divine But What Is Agreeable To Reason.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

The Two Great Dividers Are Religion And Language

...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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

All Perception Is Colored By Emotion.

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.

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

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 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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

Prudence Reproaches; Conscience Accuses.

Thinking In Pictures Precedes Thinking In Words.

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

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.

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

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

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

Divine Guidance

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

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

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

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

[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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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William S. Burroughs

Simone De Beauvoir

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