Immanuel Kant was an influential 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. Profoundly inspirational Immanuel Kant quotes will encourage you to think a little deeper than you usually would and broaden your perspective.
If you’re searching for famous philosopher quotes that perfectly capture what you’d like to say or just want to feel inspired yourself, browse through an amazing collection of quotes by Jean Jacques Rousseau, best Jean-Paul Sartre quotes and greatest David Hume quotes.
Famous Immanuel Kant Quotes
Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play. Immanuel Kant
We are not rich by what we possess but by what we can do without. Immanuel Kant
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
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. Emmanuel Kant
Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness. Immanuel Kant
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
To be is to do. Immanuel Kant
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 in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another. Sapere aude! Have courage to use your own reason! that is the motto of enlightenment. Immanuel Kant
What can I know? What ought I to do? What can I hope? Immanuel Kant
Look closely. The beautiful may be small. Immanuel Kant
Immaturity is the incapacity to use one’s intelligence without the guidance of another. Immanuel Kant
I had to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith. Immanuel Kant
Metaphysics is a dark ocean without shores or lighthouse, strewn with many a philosophic wreck. Immanuel Kant
One who makes himself a worm cannot complain afterwards if people step on him. Immanuel Kant
Out of timber so crooked as that from which man is made nothing entirely straight can be carved. Immanuel Kant
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 me. Immanuel Kant
A categorical imperative would be one which represented an action as objectively necessary in itself, without reference to any other purpose. Immanuel Kant
Dare to think! Immanuel Kant
The only objects of practical reason are therefore those of good and evil. For by the former is meant an object necessarily desired according to a principle of reason; by the latter one necessarily shunned, also according to a principle of reason. 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
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
Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily we reflect upon them the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. I do not seek or conjecture either of them as if they were veiled obscurities or extravagances beyond the horizon of my vision; I see them before me and connect them immediately with the consciousness of my existence. Immanuel Kant
Even philosophers will praise war as ennobling mankind, forgetting the Greek who said War is bad in that it begets more evil than it kills. Immanuel Kant
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. 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
Rules for happiness something to do, someone to love, something to hope for. Immanuel Kant
Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life. Immanuel Kant
For peace to reign on Earth, humans must evolve into new beings who have learned to see the whole first. Immanuel Kant
If man makes himself a worm he must not complain when he is trodden on. Immanuel Kant
Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made. Immanuel Kant
Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination. Immanuel Kant
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. Immanuel Kant
It is beyond a doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience. 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
Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end. Immanuel Kant
The busier we are, the more acutely we feel that we live, the more conscious we are of life. Immanuel Kant
Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind. Immanuel Kant
The death of dogma is the birth of morality. Immanuel Kant
Religion is the recognition of all our duties as divine commands. Immanuel Kant
But only he who, himself enlightened, is not afraid of shadows. Immanuel Kant
I had therefore to remove knowledge, in order to make room for belief. Immanuel Kant
Space and time are the framework within which the mind is constrained to construct its experience of reality. Immanuel Kant
It is not God’s will merely that we should be happy, but that we should make ourselves happy. Immanuel Kant
Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind. Immanuel Kant
It is not God’s will merely that we should be happy, but that we should make ourselves happy. Immanuel Kant
Act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world. Immanuel Kant
Have patience awhile; slanders are not long lived. Truth is the child of time; erelong she shall appear to vindicate thee. Immanuel Kant
From such crooked wood as that which man is made of, nothing straight can be fashioned. Immanuel Kant
Dare to know! Have the courage to use your own intelligence! Immanuel Kant
So act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world. Immanuel Kant
The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries. Immanuel Kant
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
We are enriched not by what we possess, but by what we can do without. Immanuel Kant
Two things awe me most, the starry sky above me and the moral law within me. Immanuel Kant
Man must be disciplined, for he is by nature raw and wild. Immanuel Kant
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
Treat people as an end, and never as a means to an end. Emmanuel Kant
Live your life as though your every act were to become a universal law. Immanuel Kant
Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. Immanuel Kant
By a lie, a man annihilates his dignity as a man. Immanuel Kant
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. But it is no dwelling place for permanent settlement. Such can be obtained only through perfect certainty in our knowledge, alike of the objects themselves and of the limits within which all our knowledge of objects is enclosed. Immanuel Kant
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. Immanuel Kant
The light dove, in free flight cutting through the air the resistance of which it feels, could get the idea that it could do even better in airless space. Likewise, Plato abandoned the world of the senses because it posed so many hindrances for the understanding, and dared to go beyond it on the wings of the ideas, in the empty space of pure understanding. Immanuel Kant
Ingratitude is the essence of vileness. Immanuel Kant
How then is perfection to be sought? Wherein lies our hope? In education, and in nothing else. Immanuel Kant
It is not necessary that whilst I live I live happily; but it is necessary that so long as I live I should live honourably. Immanuel Kant
There is something splendid about innocence; but what is bad about it, in turn, is that it cannot protect itself very well and is easily seduced. Immanuel Kant
May you live your life as if the maxim of your actions were to become universal law. Immanuel Kant
Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self incurred immaturity. Immanuel Kant
But although all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it arises from experience. Immanuel Kant
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. Immanuel Kant
Nothing is divine but what is agreeable to reason. Immanuel Kant
Have the courage to use your own reason That is the motto of enlightenment. Immanuel Kant
All thought must, directly or indirectly, by way of certain characters, relate ultimately to intuitions, and therefore, with us, to sensibility, because in no other way can an object be given to us. Immanuel Kant
An action, to have moral worth, must be done from duty. Immanuel Kant
