Immanuel Kant: Greatest Quotes

All our knowledge begins with the senses,

proceeds then to the understanding, and

ends with reason. There is nothing higher

than reason.

Genius is the ability to independently

arrive at and understand concepts that

would normally have to be taught by

another person.

Seek not the favour 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.

Enlightenment is man's emergence from

his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is

the inability to use one's understanding

without guidance from another.

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.

A man abandoned by himself on a desert island would adorn neither his hut nor his person; nor would he seek for flowers, still less would he plant them, in order to adorn himself therewith. It is only in society that it occurs to him to be not merely a man, but a refined man after his kind (the beginning of civilization). For such do we judge him to be who is both inclined and apt to communicate his pleasure to others, and who is not contented with an object if he cannot feel satisfaction in it in common with others.

Space and time are the framework within

which the mind is constrained to construct

its experience of reality.

Man must be disciplined, for he is by nature raw and wild.

As nature has uncovered from under this hard shell the seed for which she most tenderly cares - the propensity and vocation to free thinking - this gradually works back upon the character of the people, who thereby gradually become capable of managing freedom; finally, it affects the principles of government, which finds it to its advantage to treat men, who are now more than machines, in accordance with their dignity.

Skepticism is thus a resting-place for human reason, where it can reflect upon its dogmatic wanderings and make survey of the region in which it finds itself, so that for the future it may be able to choose its path with more certainty.

One who makes himself a worm cannot complain afterwards if people step on him.

The people naturally adhere most to doctrines which demand the least self-exertion and the least use of their own reason, and which can best accommodate their duties to their inclinations.

Rules for happiness: something to do, someone to love, something to hope for.