Immanuel Kant was an influential German philosopher in the Age of Enlightenment. In his doctrine of transcendental idealism, he argued that space, time, and causation are mere sensibilities; “things-in-themselves” exist, but their nature is unknowable. This Immanuel Kant quotes will motivate you.
Best Immanuel Kant Quotes
- “Rules for Happiness: something to do, someone to love, something to hope for.” ~ Immanuel Kant
- “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.” ~ Immanuel Kant
- “We are not rich by what we possess but by what we can do without.” ~ Immanuel Kant
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“You only know me as you see me, not as I actually am” ~ Immanuel Kant
- “Three things tell a man: his eyes, his friends and his favorite quotes” ~ Immanuel Kant
- “Patience is the strength of the weak, impatience is the weakness of the strong.” ~ Immanuel Kant
- “But a lie is a lie, and in itself intrinsically evil, whether it be told with good or bad intents.” ~ Immanuel Kant
- “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.” ~ Immanuel Kant
- “Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end.” ~ Immanuel Kant
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“Do the right thing because it is right.” ~ Immanuel Kant
- “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.” ~ Immanuel Kant
- “We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.” ~ Immanuel Kant
- “THERE ARE TWO THINGS that don’t have to mean anything, one is music and the other is laughter.” ~ Immanuel Kant
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“The only thing permanent is change.” ~ Immanuel Kant
- “Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play.” ~ Immanuel Kant
- “The question is not so much whether there is life on Mars as whether it will continue to be possible to live on Earth” ~ Immanuel Kant
- “Give a man everything he wants and at that moment everything is not everything” ~ Immanuel Kant
- “If man makes himself a worm he must not complain when he is trodden on.” ~ Immanuel Kant
- “Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.” ~ Immanuel Kant
- “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.” ~ Immanuel Kant
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“The greatest human quest is to know what one must do in order to become a human being.” ~ Immanuel Kant
- “The wise man can change his mind; the stubborn one, never.” ~ Immanuel Kant
- “It is never too late to become reasonable and wise.” ~ Immanuel Kant
- “Great minds think for themselves.” ~ Immanuel Kant
- “Laziness and cowardice explain why so many men. . . remain under a life-long tutelage and why it is so easy for some men to set themselves up as the guardians of all the rest. . . If I have a book which understands for me, a pastor who has a conscience for me, a doctor who decides my diet, I need not trouble myself. If I am willing to pay, I need not think. Others will do it for me.” ~ Immanuel Kant
- “Dare to know! Have the courage to use your own intelligence!” ~ Immanuel Kant
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“It is through good education that all the good in the world arises.” ~ Immanuel Kant
- “Two things strike me dumb: the infinite starry heavens, and the sense of right and wrong in man.” ~ Immanuel Kant
- “All perception is colored by emotion.” ~ Immanuel Kant
- “All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.” ~ Immanuel Kant
- “Honesty is better than any policy.” ~ Immanuel Kant
- “[R]eason is… given to us as a practical faculty, that is, as one that influences the will.” ~ Immanuel Kant
- “A single line in the Bible has consoled me more than all the books I ever read besides.” ~ Immanuel Kant
- “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.” ~ Immanuel Kant
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“Look closely. The beautiful may be small.” ~ Immanuel Kant
- “Thinking in pictures precedes thinking in words.” ~ Immanuel Kant
- “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.” ~ Immanuel Kant
- “Always treat people as ends in themselves, never as means to an end.” ~ Immanuel Kant
- “There can be no doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience.” ~ Immanuel Kant
- “Live your life as though your every act were to become a universal law.” ~ Immanuel Kant
- “Morality is not properly the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.” ~ Immanuel Kant
- “Genius is the ability to independently arrive at and understand concepts that would normally have to be taught by another person.” ~ Immanuel Kant
- “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.” ~ Immanuel Kant
- “The two great dividers are religion and LANGUAGE” ~ Immanuel Kant
