40+ Kant Quotes From The German Philosopher

Georgia Stone
Dec 12, 2023 By Georgia Stone
Originally Published on Feb 01, 2021
Edited by Luca Demetriou
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Immanuel Kant was a famous German Enlightenment philosopher.

Kant is known for being one of the most influential figures of modern philosophy and Immanuel Kant quotes are very popular. He stressed the need to identify reason and empiricism as the basis of knowledge and is known throughout the world for his writings and lectures.

Immanuel Kant has been a figure of increasing admiration and awe in the history of the world. His writings have ranged across the moral laws within human beings, ethics, and modernity.

In his vast volume of writings, Immanuel Kant has lectured and written extensively about different things that can inspire and help people in times of need. Thus we bring to you the best handpicked Immanuel Kant quotes to inspire and help you.

If you have liked our article on Immanuel Kant quotes, please do check out our articles on quotes by [Ludwig Wittgenstein] and Will Durant.

Immanuel Kant Quotes On Knowledge

Without Immanuel Kant, it would have been impossible to know and understand what knowledge is. Let us look at the best Immanuel Kant quotes on knowledge.

1. "It is beyond a doubt that all our knowledge that begins with experience."

- Immanuel Kant.

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

- Immanuel Kant.

3. "Our age is the age of criticism, to which everything must submit. Religion through its holiness and legislation through its majesty commonly seek to exempt themselves from it."

- Immanuel Kant.

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

- Immanuel Kant.

5. "Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind."

- Immanuel Kant.

Morality Quotes By Immanuel Kant

Ancient Roman or Greek goddess marble statue.

The moral law within man has been one of the topics on which Immanuel Kant has written extensively on.  Let us look at the best Kant famous quotes on morality in this collection of Immanuel Kant quotes.

6. "Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing wonder and awe-the starry heavens above me, and the moral law within me."

- Immanuel Kant.

7. "Morality is not properly the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness."

- Immanuel Kant.

8. "Live your life as though your every act were to become a universal law."

- Immanuel Kant.

9. "So act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world."

- Immanuel Kant.

10. "Have patience awhile; slanders are not long-lived. Truth is the child of time; erelong she shall appear to vindicate thee."

- Immanuel Kant.

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

- Immanuel Kant.

12. “The categorical imperative would be that which represented an action as objectively necessary of itself, without reference to another end.”

- Immanuel Kant.

13. “The death of dogma is the birth of morality.”

- Immanuel Kant.

Immanuel Kant Quotes On Reason

The role of reason in the nature of man is another topic on which Immanuel Kant and has written extensively. Let us have a look at the best Immanuel Kant quotes on reason.

14. "Nothing is divine but what is agreeable to reason."

- Immanuel Kant.

15. “All the interests of my reason, speculative as well as practical, combine in the three following questions: 1. What can I know? 2. What ought I to do? 3. What may I hope?"

- Immanuel Kant.

16. "The only objects of practical reason are therefore those of good and evil."

- Immanuel Kant.

17. "Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination."

- Immanuel Kant.

Immanuel Kant Quotes On Ethics

One of the domains that Immanuel Kant specialized in was that of ethics. Let us have a look at the best Immanuel Kant quotes on ethics.

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

- Immanuel Kant.

19. "Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness."

- Immanuel Kant.

20. "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.”

- Immanuel Kant.

21. "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."

- Immanuel Kant.

22. "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.

23. "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.

Immanuel Kant Quotes On Enlightenment

One of the biggest milestones in the history of man is The Enlightenment period, of which Immanuel Kant was one of the influential philosophers. Let us have a look at the best enlightenment Immanuel Kant quotes in this assortment of quotes by Kant to make use of.

24. "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."

- Immanuel Kant.

25. "Have courage to use your own reason!" - that is the motto of enlightenment."

- Immanuel Kant.

26. "Nothing is required for this enlightenment, however, except freedom, and indeed the most harmless among all the things to which this term can properly be applied."

- Immanuel Kant.

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

- Immanuel Kant.

28. "Out of timber so crooked as that from which man is made nothing entirely straight can be carved."

- Immanuel Kant.

29. "But only one who is himself enlightened, is not afraid of shadows, and has a numerous and well-disciplined army to assure public peace, can say: "Argue as much as you will, and about what you will, only obey!"

- Immanuel Kant.

Best Immanuel Kant Quotes

All the quotes from Immanuel Kant are important and influential. Let us have a look at the best Immanuel Kant quotes in this collection of Immanuel Kant quotes.

30. "For peace to reign on Earth, humans must evolve into new beings who have learned to see the whole first."

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

- Immanuel Kant.

32. "Religion is the recognition of all our duties as divine commands."

- Immanuel Kant.

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

- Immanuel Kant.

34. "If man makes himself a worm he must not complain when he is trodden on."

- Immanuel Kant.  

35. "From such crooked wood as that which man is made of, nothing straight can be fashioned."

- Immanuel Kant.

36. "By a lie a man throws away and as it were annihilates his dignity as a man."

- Immanuel Kant.

37. “The busier we are, the more acutely we feel that we live, the more conscious we are of life.”

- Immanuel Kant.

38. "It is not God's will merely that we should be happy, but that we should make ourselves happy."  

- Immanuel Kant.

39. "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.

40. "How then is perfection to be sought? Wherein lies our hope? In education, and in nothing else."

- Immanuel Kant.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly quotes for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for kant quotes then why not take a look at Greek quotes, or transcendentalism quotes.

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Written by Georgia Stone

Bachelor of Arts specializing in French with Film Studies, Bachelor of Arts (Year Abroad) specializing in Literature, History, Language, Media, and Art

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Georgia StoneBachelor of Arts specializing in French with Film Studies, Bachelor of Arts (Year Abroad) specializing in Literature, History, Language, Media, and Art

Georgia is an experienced Content Manager with a degree in French and Film Studies from King's College London and Bachelors degree from Université Paris-Sorbonne. Her passion for exploring the world and experiencing different cultures was sparked during her childhood in Switzerland and her year abroad in Paris. In her spare time, Georgia enjoys using London's excellent travel connections to explore further afield.

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