Immanuel Kant Quotes

[T]his species works intentionally on its own destruction (by war). This, however, does not keep the rational creatures of such a constantly advancing culture, even in the midst of war, from promising to mankind in coming centuries an unequivocal prospect of bliss which will never end.

I do not, therefore, need any penetrating acuteness to see what I have to do in order that my volition be morally good. Inexperienced in the course of the world, incapable of being prepared for whatever might come to pass in it, I ask myself only: can you also will that your maxim become a universal law?

If justice perishes, then it is no longer worthwhile for men to live upon the earth.

Art is purposiveness without purpose.

There can be only one reason why we must do what duty demands, and that is that we demand it of ourselves.

they cudgel their brains with absurd questions, such as, for instance, why God did not make the world many centuries earlier. They persuade themselves that it is easy to conceive, to be sure, how God may discern what is present, that is, what is actual in the time in which he is, but how He may foresee what is future, that is, what is actual in the time in which He is not yet, they deem an intellectual difficulty; as if the existence of the Necessary Being descended through all the moments of an imaginary time, and, having already exhausted a part of His duration, saw before Him the eternity He was yet to live simultaneously with the present events of the world. All these difficulties upon proper insight into the notion of time vanish like smoke.

But freedom is a mere Idea, the objective reality of which can in no wise be shown according to the laws of nature, and consequently not in any possible experience; and for this reason it can never be comprehended or understood, because we cannot support it by any sort of example or analogy.

What would proceed from a continual promotion of living force, which does not let itself climb above a certain grade, other than a rapid death from delight?

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.

Если бы у вас не было способности a priori созерцать, если бы это субъективное условие не было в то же время по своей форме общим априорным условием, при котором единственно возможны объекты самого этого (внешнего) созерцания, если бы предмет (треугольник) был чем-то самим по себе безотносительно к вашему субъекту, – то как вы могли бы утверждать, что то, что необходимо заложено в ваших субъективных условиях построения треугольника, должно необходимо быть само по себе присуще также треугольнику? Ведь в таком случае вы не могли бы прибавить к вашим понятиям (о трех линиях) ничего нового ([понятие] фигуры), что тем самым необходимо должно было бы быть в предмете, так как этот предмет дан до вашего познания, а не посредством его. Следовательно, если бы пространство (и таким же образом время) не было только формой вашего созерцания, a priori содержащей условия, единственно при которых вещи могут быть для вас внешними предметами, которые без этих субъективных условий сами по себе суть ничто, то вы абсолютно ничего не могли бы утверждать синтетически a priori о внешних объектах. Следовательно, не только возможно или вероятно, но и совершенно несомненно, что пространство и время как необходимые условия всякого (внешнего и внутреннего) опыта суть лишь субъективные условия всякого нашего созерцания, в отношении к которому поэтому все предметы суть только явления, а не данные таким образом вещи сами по себе (fur sich); поэтому о том, что касается формы их, многое можно сказать a priori, но никогда ничего нельзя сказать о вещи самой по себе, которая могла бы лежать в основе этих явлений.

There are such manifold forms of nature; there are many modifications of the general transcendental concepts of nature that are left undetermined by the laws furnished by pure intellect a priori because these laws only concern the general possibility of nature as an object of the senses.

On the other band, if adversity and hopeless sorrow have completely taken away the relish for life; if the unfortunate one, strong in mind, indignant at his fate rather than desponding or dejected, wishes for death, and yet preserves his life without loving it — not from inclination or fear, but from duty — then his maxim has a moral worth.

all human cognition begins with intuitions, proceeds from thence to conceptions, and ends with ideas.

Here as elsewhere human reason in its pure use, so long as it was not critically examined, has first tried all possible wrong ways before it succeeded in finding the one true way.

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 preserves his life without loving it, not from inclination or fear but from duty, then his maxim has moral content.