We are not rich by what we possess but by what we can do without.

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.

Was nicht ein Gegenstand der Erfahrung sein kann, dessen Erkenntniß wäre hyperphysisch, und mit dergleichen haben wir hier gar nicht zu thun, sondern mit der Naturerkenntniß, deren Realität durch Erfahrung bestätigt werden kann, on sie...

It is an empirical judgement [to say] that I perceive and judge an object with pleasure. But it is an a priori judgement [to say] that I find it beautiful, i.e. I attribute this satisfaction...

if adversity and hopeless grief have quite taken away the taste for life; if an unfortunate man, strong of soul and more indignant about his fate than despondent or dejected, wishes for death and yet...

Genius is the ability to independently arrive at and understand concepts that would normally have to be taught by another person.

Settle, for sure and universally, what conduct will promote the happiness of a rational being.

…Reason should take on anew the most difficult of all its tasks, namely, that of self-knowledge, and to institute a court of justice, by which reason may secure its rightful claims while dismissing all its...

To be is to do.

(On the seeming futility of metaphysics) Why then has nature afflicted our reason with the restless striving for such a path, as if it were one of reason’s most important occupations? Still more, how little...

Handle so, daß die Maxime deines Willens jederzeit zugleich als Prinzip einer allgemeinen Gesetzgebung gelten könne.

The death of dogma is the birth of morality.

Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Nothing is required for this enlightenment except freedom; and the freedom in question is the least harmful of all, namely, the freedom to use with and publicly...

…new prejudices will serve as well as old ones to harness the great unthinking masses.For this enlightenment, however, nothing is required but freedom, and indeed the most harmless among all the things to which this...

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.

But to unite in a permanent religious institution which is not to be subject to doubt before the public even in the lifetime of one man, and thereby to make a period of time fruitless...

I had to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith.

The whole interest of my reason, whether speculative or practical, is concentrated in the three following questions: What can I know? What should I do? What may I hope? (Critique of Pure Reason

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...

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.

True politics cannot take a single step without first paying homage to morals, and while politics itself is a difficult art, its combination with morals is no art at all; for morals cuts the Gordian...

All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.

[To think for oneself] is the maxim of a reason never passive. The tendency to such passivity, and therefore to heteronomy of reason, is called prejudice; and the greatest prejudice of all is to represent...

Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why so great a portion of mankind, after nature has long since discharged them from external direction (naturaliter maiorennes), nevertheless remains under lifelong tutelage, and why it is so...

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

An action, to have moral worth, must be done from duty.

Así, pues, el valor de todos los objetos que podemos obtener por medio de nuestras acciones es siempre condicionado. Los seres cuya existencia no descansa en nuestra voluntad, sino en la naturaleza, tienen, empero, si...

But, above all, it will confer an inestimable benefit on morality and religion, by showing that all the objections urged against them may be silenced for ever by the Socratic method, that is to say,...

Human beings are never to be treated as a means but always as ends.

[At the beginning of modern science], a light dawned on all those who study nature. They comprehended that reason has insight only into what it itself produces according to its own design; that it must...

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...

Jeg skal alltid handle slik at den regelen jeg handler etter kunne gjelde som allmenn lov.

Dignity is a value that creates irreplaceability.

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.

Coffee! Coffee!

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...

Enlightenment is man’s release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man’s inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. Self-incurred is this tutelage when its cause lies not in lack of reason...

But although all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it arises from experience.

Simply to acquiesce in skepticism can never suffice to overcome the restlessness of reason.

Une politique valable ne peut faire un pas sans rendre hommage à la morale.

Laughter is an affect resulting from the sudden transformation of a heightened expectation into nothing.

From the crooked timber of humanity, a straight board cannot be hewn.

An age cannot bind itself and ordain to put the succeeding one into such a condition that it cannot extend its (at best very occasional) knowledge , purify itself of errors, and progress in general...

But, though all our knowledge begins with experience, it by no means follows that all arises out of experience.

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...

Treat people as an end, and never as a means to an end

In every department of physical science there is only so much science, properly so-called, as there is mathematics.

If we suppose that mankind never can or will be in a better condition, it seems impossible to justify by any kind of theodicy the mere fact that such a race of corrupt beings could...

But only he who, himself enlightened, is not afraid of shadows.

Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play.