Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Immanuel Kant (Prussian German Philosopher)

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) was a German philosopher. His Critique of Pure Reason (1781) and Critique of Judgment (1790) offer an analysis of speculative and moral reason and the faculty of human judgment. He exerted an immense influence on the intellectual movements of the 19th and 20th centuries. European philosophy is generally divided into pre-Kantian and post-Kantian schools of thought.

Born in Königsberg, East Prussia, to Lutheran parents, Kant studied theology, physics, mathematics, and philosophy at university. He lectured at the University of Königsberg for 15 years until he was eventually given a tenured position as professor of logic and metaphysics in 1770.

In his most influential work, The Critique of Pure Reason, Kant argued against Empiricism (the mind was a blank slate to be filled with observations of the physical world) and against Rationalism (it was possible to experience the world objectively without the interference of the mind.) He synthesized those two schools of philosophy—he asserted that the conscious mind must process and organize our perceptions, and made a distinction between the natural worlds as we observe it and the natural world as it is.

In The Critique of Practical Reason, Kant affirmed the existence of absolute moral law, the categorical imperative of morality dictated by actions based on rightness. Kant viewed morality as something that arises from human reason; he maintained that an action’s goodness is determined not by the outcome of the action, but by the motive behind it.

Kant also wrote several essays in support of religious liberalism and the Enlightenment.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Immanuel Kant

Always so act that the immediate motive of thy will may become a universal rule for all intelligent beings.
—Immanuel Kant
Topics: Influence

It is beyond a doubt that all our knowledge that begins with experience.
—Immanuel Kant

Live your life as though your every act were to become a universal law.
—Immanuel Kant
Topics: Life and Living

Life is the faculty of spontaneous activity, the awareness that we have powers.
—Immanuel Kant
Topics: Action

Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means but always also as an end.
—Immanuel Kant
Topics: Action

It is not necessary that whilst I live I live happily; but it is necessary that so long as I live I should live honorably.
—Immanuel Kant
Topics: Happiness

Intuition and concepts constitute… the elements of all our knowledge, so that neither concepts without an intuition in some way corresponding to them, nor intuition without concepts, can yield knowledge.
—Immanuel Kant

Man must be disciplined, for he is by nature raw and wild.
—Immanuel Kant
Topics: Discipline

The greatest human quest is to know
what one must do in order to become a human being.
—Immanuel Kant

Thrift is care and scruple in the spending of one’s means. It is not a virtue and it requires neither skill nor talent.
—Immanuel Kant
Topics: Economy

Out of timber so crooked as that from which man is made nothing entirely straight can be carved.
—Immanuel Kant
Topics: Humanity, Humankind

Metaphysics is a dark ocean without shores or lighthouse, strewn with many a philosophic wreck.
—Immanuel Kant
Topics: Philosophy

Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination.
—Immanuel Kant
Topics: Happiness

Immaturity is the incapacity to use one’s intelligence without the guidance of another.
—Immanuel Kant

Riches ennoble a man’s circumstances, but not himself.
—Immanuel Kant
Topics: Riches

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

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.
—Immanuel Kant
Topics: Charity, Kindness

The death of dogma is the birth of reality.
—Immanuel Kant
Topics: Change

What are the aims which are at the same time duties?—they are the perfecting of ourselves, and the happiness of others.
—Immanuel Kant

Have patience awhile; slanders are not long-lived.—Truth is the child of time; ere long she shall appear to vindicate thee.
—Immanuel Kant
Topics: Slander

The possession of power inevitably spoils the free use of reason.
—Immanuel Kant
Topics: Power

In law, a man is guilty when he violates the rights of another. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so.
—Immanuel Kant
Topics: Ethics

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.
—Immanuel Kant
Topics: Respect

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.
—Immanuel Kant
Topics: Animals

Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a be general natural law.
—Immanuel Kant
Topics: Doing Your Best, Action, Living

Seek not the favor of the multitude; it is seldom got by honest and lawful means. But seek the testimony of the few: and number not voices, but weigh them.
—Immanuel Kant
Topics: Popularity

All human knowledge thus begins with intuitions, proceeds thence to concepts, and ends with ideas.
—Immanuel Kant
Topics: Intuition

Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing can ever be made.
—Immanuel Kant
Topics: Humanity

An action is essentially good if the motive of the agent be good, regardless of the consequences.
—Immanuel Kant
Topics: Goodness

Honesty is better than any policy.
—Immanuel Kant
Topics: Honesty

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