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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.

-Immanuel Kant

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The Ideal Of The

Immanuel Kant

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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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

There Is Nothing Higher Than Reason.

Categorical Imperative

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

So Act That Anything You Do May Become Universal Law.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

...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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Self Improvement

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

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

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

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

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

The Arts Of Speech Are Rhetoric And Poetry. Rhetoric Is The Art Of Transacting A Serious Business Of The Understanding As If It Were A Free Play Of The Imagination; Poetry That Of Conducting A Free Play Of The Imagination As If It Were A Serious Business Of The Understanding.

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

Nothing Is Divine But What Is Agreeable To Reason.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Everything In Nature Acts In Conformity With 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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Science Is Organized Knowledge. Wisdom Is Organized Life.

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.

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.'

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.

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

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

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.

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

Look Closely. The Beautiful May Be Small.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Beneficence Is A Duty; And He Who Frequently Practices It, And Sees His Benevolent Intentions Realized Comes, At Length, Really To Love Him To Whom He Has Done Good.

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

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.

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?

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

Maximum Individuality Within Maximum Community

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).

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

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

Often War Is Waged Only In Order To Show Valor; Thus An Inner Dignity Is Ascribed To War Itself, And Even Some Philosophers Have Praised It As An Ennoblement Of Humanity, Forgetting The Pronouncement Of The Greek Who Said, 'war Is An Evil In As Much As It Produces More Wicked Men Than It Takes Away.'

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

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.

A Philosophical Attempt To Work Out A Universal History According To A Natural Plan Directed To Achieving The Civic Union Of The Human Race Must Be Regarded As Possible And, Indeed, As Contributing To This End Of Nature.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

Art Is Purposiveness Without Purpose.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

[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.

Ingratitude Is The Essence Of Vileness.

Inspirational Christmas

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

Honesty Is Better Than Any Policy.

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

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.

It Is Never Too Late To Become Reasonable And Wise.

. . . 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. . . .

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

[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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Do What Is Right, Though The World May Perish.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Better The Whole People Perish Than That Injustice Be Done

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

All Our Knowledge Falls With The Bounds Of Experience.

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.

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?

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

The 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.

Thoughts Without Content Are Empty, Intuitions Without Concepts Are Blind... The Understanding Can Intuit Nothing, The Senses Can Think Nothing. Only Through Their Union Can Knowledge Arise.

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

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

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

Prudence Approaches, Conscience Accuses.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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 Only Thing Permanent Is Change.

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.

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

Knowledge Experience

Knowledge And Experience

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Reason Can Never Prove The Existence Of God.

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

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.

Great Minds Think For Themselves.

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

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

Human Reason Is By Nature Architectonic.

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Charles Kettering

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