“Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.” – Immanuel Kant
Today we share the philosophy of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) from a collection of his works on practical philosophy as well as from his seminal ‘Critique Of Pure Reason’, widely considered to be one of the monumental works in the history of Western philosophy. As said by Paul Guyer on ‘Critique Of Pure Reason’: “To tell the whole story of the book’s influence would be to write the history of philosophy since Kant.”
Primary Sources
Quotes are excerpted from two volumes of the series ‘The Cambridge Edition Of The Works Of IMMANUEL KANT’:
(1) ‘Practical Philosophy’, which was published in 2008 and features an introduction by Allen Wood and a translation by Mary J. Gregor. Quoted from ‘Practical Philosophy’ are from the following works of Immanuel Kant:
– ‘Review Of Schulze…’, published 1783
– ‘An Answer To The Question: What Is Enlightenment?’, published 1784
– ‘Groundwork Of The Metaphysics Of Morals’, published 1785
– ‘The Critique Of Practical Reason’, published 1788
– ‘On The Common Saying…’, published 1793
– ‘Toward Perpetual Peace’, published 1795
– ‘The Metaphysics Of Morals’, published 1797
(2) ‘Critique Of Pure Reason’, which was published in 2019 and features an introduction and translation as the joint efforts of Paul Guyer and Allen Wood. Quoted from ‘Critique Of Pure Reason’ are:
– ‘Critique Of Pure Reason’ – first edition, published 1781
– ‘Critique Of Pure Reason’ – second edition, published 1787
Quotes From The Works Of Immanuel Kant
Autonomy
‘Review Of Schulze’s ‘Attempt At Introduction To A Doctrine Of Morals For All Human Beings Regardles Of Different Religions’’:
“There is… no free will: the will is subject to the strict law of necessity.”
“… hence he always admits freedom to think, without which there is no reason. In the same way he must also assume freedom of the will in acting, without which there would be no morals, when… he wants to proceed in his righteous conduct in conformity with the eternal laws of duty and not to be a plaything of his instincts and inclinations…”
‘An Answer To The Question: What Is Enlightenment?’:
“Enlightenment is the human being’s emergence from his self-incurred minority. Minority is inability to make use of one’s own understanding without direction from another. This minority is self-incurred when its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another. Have courage to make use of your own understanding! is thus the motto of enlightenment.”
“For… enlightenment… nothing is required but freedom… freedom to make public use of one’s reason in all matters… The public use of one’s reason must always be free…”
‘Groundwork Of The Metaphysics Of Morals’:
“All rational cognition is either material and concerned with some object, orformal and occupied only with the form of the understanding and of reason itself and with the universal rules of thinking in general, without distinction of objects.”
“… human reason is impelled… to take a step into the field of practical philosophy, in order to obtain there information and distinct instruction regarding the source of its principle and the correct determination of this principle in comparison with maxims based on need and inclination, so that it may escape from its predicament about claims from both sides and not run the risk of being deprived of all genuine moral principles through the ambiguity into which it easily falls.”
“…all moral concepts have their seat and origin completely a priori in reason…”
“… happiness is not an ideal of reason but of imagination…”
“The dependence upon the principle of autonomy of a will that is not absolutely good (moral necessitation) is obligation… The objective necessity of an action from obligation is called duty.”
“Will is a kind of causality of living beings insofar as they are rational, and freedom would be that property of such casualty that it can be efficient independently of alien causes determining it…”
“… what, then, can freedom of the will be other than autonomy, that is, the will’s property of being a law to itself?”
“… a rational being must regard himself as intelligence as belonging not to the world of sense but to the world of understanding…”
“All human beings think of themselves as having free will.”
“Freedom… is a mere idea… It holds only as a necessary presupposition of reason in a being that believes itself to be conscious of a will…”
‘The Critique Of Practical Reason’:
“… a rational being’s consciousness of the agreeableness of life uninterruptedly accompanying his whole existence is happiness, and the principle of making this the supreme determining ground of choice is the principle of self-love.”
“The principle of one’s own happiness, however much understanding and reason may be used in it, still contains no determining ground for the will other than such as is suitable to the lower faculty of desire… insofar as reason of itself determines the will, is reason a true higher faculty of desire, to which the pathologically determinable is subordinate, and then only is reason really, and indeed specifically, distinct from the latter…”
“To be happy is necessarily the demand of every rational but finite being and therefore an unavoidable determining ground of its faculty of desire.”
“… if no determining ground of the will other than that universal lawgiving form can serve as a law for it, such a will must be thought as altogether independent of the natural law of appearances in their relations to one another, namely the law of causality. But such independence is called freedom in the strictest, that is, in the transcendental, sense. Therefore, a will for which the mere lawgiving form of a maxim can alone serve as a law is a free will.”
“Autonomy of the will is the sole principle of all moral laws and of duties in keeping with them… moral law expresses nothing other than the autonomy of pure practical reason, that is, freedom…”
“… freedom [is] a regulative principle of reason… of all the intelligible absolutely nothing [is cognized] except freedom (by means of the moral law)…”
“… personality [is] freedom and independence from the mechanism of the whole of nature…”
“It is a priori (morally) necessary to produce the highest good through the freedom of the will: the condition of its possibility must therefore rest solely on a priori grounds of cognition.”
“Freedom, and the consciousness of freedom as an ability to follow the moral law with an unyielding disposition, is independence from the inclinations, at least as motives determining our desire, and so far as I am conscious of this freedom in following my moral maxims, it is the sole source of an unchangeable contentment, necessarily combined with it and resting on no special feeling, and this can be called intellectual contentment.”
‘Toward Perpetual Peace’:
“… possession of power unavoidably corrupts the free judgment of reason.”
‘The Metaphysics Of Morals’:
“The faculty of desire is the faculty to be, by means of one’s representations, the cause of the objects of these representations. The faculty of a being to act in accordance with its representations is called life.”
“… in a narrow sense; habitual desire is called inclination; and a connection of pleasure with the faculty of desire that the understanding judges to hold as a general rule (though only for the subject) is called an interest. So if a pleasure necessarily precedes a desire, the practical pleasure must be called an interest of inclination. But if a pleasure can only follow upon an antecedent determination of the faculty of desire it is an intellectual pleasure, and the interest in the object must be called an interest of reason; for if the interest were based on the senses and not on pure rational principles alone, sensation would then have to have pleasure connected with it and in this way be able to determine the faculty of desire… Insofar as [the faculty of desire] is joined with one’s consciousness of the ability to bring about its object by one’s action it is called choice; if it is not joined with this consciousness its act is called a wish. The faculty of desire whose inner determining ground… lies within the subject’s reason is called the will.”
“… the concept of freedom is a pure rational concept… an object of which we cannot obtain any theoretical cognition…”
“… the will directs with absolute necessity and is itself subject to no necessitation. Only choice can therefore be called free.”
“… intellectual and moral predisposition [is] called conscience…”
‘Critique Of Pure Reason’:
“Human reason… is burdened with questions which it cannot dismiss… but which it also cannot answer…”
“The charm in expanding one’s cognitions is so great that one can be stopped in one’s progress only by bumping into a clear contradiction.”
“… reason is the faculty that provides the principles of cognition a priori.”
“… everything practical, insofar as it contains motives, is related to feelings, which belong among empirical sources of cognition.”
“… no cognition in us precedes experience, and with experience every cognition begins.”
“… certain cognitions even abandon the field of all possible experiences, and seem to expand the domain of our judgments beyond all bounds of experience through concepts to which no corresponding object at all can be given in experience. And precisely in these latter cognitions, which go beyond the world of the senses, where experience can give neither guidance nor correction, lie the investigations of our reason that we hold to be far more preeminent in their importance and sublime in their final aim than everything that the understanding can learn in the field of appearance… The unavoidable problems of pure reason itself are God, freedom and immortality.”
“… appearances… exist… only in us.”
“… spontaneity of cognition, is the understanding.”
“It is… just as necessary to make the mind’s concepts sensible as it is to make its intuitions understandable.”
“The understanding is not capable of intuiting anything, and the senses are not capable of thinking anything. Only from their unification can cognition arise.”
“All intuitions… rest on affections…”
“The possibility of an experience in general and cognition of its objects rest on three subjective sources of cognition: sense, imagination, and apperception; each of these can be considered empirically, namely in application to given appearances, but they are also elements or foundations a priori that make this empirical use itself possible. Sense represents the appearances empirically in perception, the imagination in association (and reproduction), and apperceptionin the empirical consciousness of the identity of these reproductive representations with the appearances through which they were given, hence inrecognition.”
“The unity of apperception in relation to the synthesis of the imagination is the understanding…”
“We… have a pure imagination, as a fundamental faculty of the human soul, that grounds all cognition a priori. By its means we bring into combination the manifold of intuition on the one side and the condition of the necessary unity of apperception on the other. Both extremes, namely sensibility and understanding, must necessarily be connected by means of this transcendental function of the imagination, since otherwise the former would to be sure yield appearances but no objects of an empirical cognition, hence there would be no experience… Sensibility gives us forms (of intuition), but the understanding gives us rules.”
“… understanding is itself the source of the laws of nature…”
“That representation that can be given prior to all thinking is called intuition.”
“Understanding is, generally speaking, the faculty of cognitions.”
“The first pure cognition of the understanding… on which the whole of the rest of its use is grounded, and that is at the same time also entirely independent from all conditions of sensible intuition, is the principle of the original synthetic unity of apperception. Thus the mere form of outer sensible intuition, space, is not yet cognition at all; it only gives the manifold of intuition a priori for a possible cognition.”
“… the determination of my existence can only occur in correspondence with… inner sense… I therefore have no cognition of myself as I am, but only as I appear to myself.”
“… I exist as an intelligence that is merely conscious…”
“General logic is constructed on a plan that corresponds quite precisely with the division of the higher faculties of cognition. These are: understanding, the power of judgment, and reason.”
“… time is the only form of intuition…”
“All of our cognitions… lie in the entirety of all possible experience, and transcendental truth… The possibility of experience is therefore that which gives all of our cognitions a priori objective reality.”
“Perception is empirical consciousness, one in which there is at the same time sensation.”
“Experience is… a cognition that determines an object through perceptions.”
“The mere, but empirically determined, consciousness of my own existence proves the existence of objects in space outside me.”
“Reflection… [is] the state of mind in which we first prepare ourselves to find out the subjective conditions under which we can arrive at concepts.”
“The understanding… bounds sensibility…”
“All our cognition starts from the senses, goes from there to the understanding, and ends with reason, beyond which there is nothing higher to be found in us…”
“If the understanding may be a faculty of unity of appearances by means of rules, then reason is the faculty of the unity of the rules of understanding under principles. Thus it never applies directly to experience or to any object, but instead applies to the understanding, in order to give unity a priori through concepts to the understanding’s manifold cognitions, which may be called “the unity of reason”, and is of an altogether different kind than any unity that can be achieved by the understanding. This is the universal concept of the faculty of reason, as far as that concept can be made comprehensible wholly in the absence of examples.”
“In every inference there is a proposition that serves as a ground, and another, namely the conclusion, that is drawn from the former, and finally the inference (consequence) according to which the truth of the conclusion is connected unfailingly with the truth of the first proposition. If the inferred judgment already lies in the first one, so that it can be derived from it without the mediation of a third representation, then this is called an “immediate inference”; I would rather call it an inference of the understanding. But if, in addition to the cognition that serves as a ground, yet another judgment is necessary to effect the conclusion, then the inference is called a “syllogism”… In every syllogism I think first a rule (the major) through the understanding. Secondly, I subsume a cognition under the condition of the rule (the minor) by means of the power of judgment. Finally, I determine my cognition through the predicate of the rule (the conclusio), hence a priori through reason. Thus the relation between a cognition and its condition, which the major premise represents as the rule, constitutes the different kinds of syllogisms. They are therefore threefold – just as are all judgments in general – insofar as they are distinguished by the way they express the relation of cognition to the understanding: namely, categorical or hypothetical or disjunctivesyllogisms… the syllogism does not deal with intuitions, in order to bring them under rules (as does the understanding with its categories), but rather deals with concepts and judgments… the syllogism is nothing but a judgment mediated by the subsumption of its condition under a universal rule (the major premise)… the syllogism is itself a judgment determined a priori in the whole domain of its condition.”
“… reason in its logical use seeks its conclusion…”
“Reason, considered as the faculty of a certain logical form of cognition, is the faculty of inferring… reason … declares its cognition to be determined a priori…”
“… I cannot really perceive external things, but only infer their existence from my inner perceptions…”
“… in itself the soul cognizes: Reason is the faculty of principles.”
“… I cognize myself not by being conscious of myself as thinking, but only if I am conscious to myself of the intuition of myself as determined in regard to the function of thought.”
“The world has a beginning in time, and in space…For if one assumes that the world has no beginning in time, then up to every given point in time an eternity has elapsed… a beginning of the world is a necessary condition of its existence…”
“… reason sees itself, in the midst of its greatest expectations, so entangled in a crowd of arguments and counterarguments that it is not feasible, on account either of its honor or even of its security, for reason to withdraw and look upon the quarrel with indifference, as mere shadow boxing, still less for it simply to command peace, interested as it is in the object of the dispute…”
“… honesty requires that a reflective and inquiring being should devote certain times solely to testing its own reason…”
“The law of nature that everything that happens has a cause… is a law of the understanding, from which under no pretext can any departure be allowed or any appearance be exempted; because otherwise one would put this appearance outside of all possible experience, thereby distinguishing it from all objects of possible experience and making it into a mere thought-entity and a figment of the brain.”
“The human being is one of the appearances in the world of sense…”
“… every human being has an empirical character for his power of choice, which is nothing other than a certain causality of his reason…”
“… human reason contains not only ideas but also ideals… The aim of reason with its ideal is… a thoroughgoing determination in accordance with a priori rules; hence it thinks for itself an object that is to be thoroughly determinable in accordance with principles, even though the sufficient conditions for this are absent from experience, and thus the concept itself is transcendent.”
“… reason… spreads its wings in vain when seeking to rise above the world of sense through the mere might of speculation.”
“… a human being can no more become richer in insight from mere ideas than a merchant could in resources if he wanted to improve his financial state by adding a few zeros to his cash balance.”
“Reason never relates directly to an object, but solely to the understanding and by means of it to reason’s own empirical use, hence it does not create any concepts (of objects) but only orders them and gives them that unity which they can have in their greatest possible extension… Thus reason really has as object only the understanding and its purposive application, and just as the understanding unites the manifold into an object through concepts, so reason on its side unites the manifold of concepts through ideas by positing a certain collective unity as the goal of the understanding’s actions, which are otherwise concerned only with distributive unity.”
“If we survey the cognitions of our understanding in their entire range, then we find that what reason quite uniquely prescribes and seeks to bring about concerning it is the systematic in cognition, i.e., its interconnection based on one principle.”
“… reason… without that, no coherent use of the understanding, and, lacking that, no sufficient mark of empirical truth… Reason thus prepares the field for the understanding… The understanding constitutes an object for reason, just as sensibility does for the understanding.”
“… all human cognition begins with intuitions, goes from there to concepts, and ends with ideas… All of our cognition is in the end related to possible intuitions: for through these alone is an object given…”
“… of all intuition none is given a priori except the mere form of appearances, space and time…”
“… it is always and without any doubt useful to grant reason full freedom in its search as well as its examination, so that it can take care of its own interest without hindrance, which is promoted just as much by setting limits to its insights as by expanding them, and which always suffers if foreign hands intervene to lead it forcibly to aims contrary to its natural path.”
“The consciousness of my ignorance should not end my inquiries, but is rather the proper cause to arouse them.”
“The sum total of all possible objects for our cognition seems to us to be a flat surface, which has its apparent horizon, namely that which comprehends its entire domain and which is called by us the rational concept of unconditioned totality… Yet all questions of our pure reason pertain to that which might lie outside this horizon or in any case at least on its borderline.”
“… skepticism is a resting place for human reason, which can reflect upon its dogmatic peregrination and make a survey of the region in which it finds itself in order to be able to choose its path in the future with greater certainty, but it is not a dwelling-place for permanent residence…”
“Our reason is not like an indeterminably extended plane, the limits of which one can cognize only in general, but must rather be compared with a sphere, the radius of which can be found out from the curvature of an arc on its surface (from the nature of synthetic a priori propositions), from which its content and its boundary can also be ascertained with certainty. Outside this sphere (field of experience) nothing is an object for it…”
“We are really in possession of synthetic a priori cognition, as is established by the principles of understanding, which anticipate experience.”
“… through the critique of our reason we finally know that we cannot in fact know anything at all in its pure and speculative use…”
“Reason is driven by a propensity of its nature to go beyond its use in experience, to venture to the outermost bounds of all cognition by means of mere ideas in a pure use, and to find peace only in the completion of its circle in a self-subsisting systematic whole.”
Social Capital
‘An Answer To The Question: What Is Enlightenment?’:
“… prejudices… finally take their revenge on the very people who, or whose predecessors, were their authors. Thus a public can achieve enlightenment only slowly.”
‘On The Common Saying: That May Be Correct In Theory, But It Is Of No Use In Practice’:
“Nowhere does human nature appear less lovable than in the relations of entire peoples to one another. No state is for a moment secure from others in either its independence or its property. The will to subjugate one another or to diminish what belongs to another always exists…”
‘Toward Perpetual Peace’:
“From all these twistings and turnings by which an immoral doctrine of prudence tries to bing a condition of peace among human beings out of the warlike condition of a state of nature, at least this much is clear: people can no more get away from the concept of right in their private relations than in their public relations, and they dare not… disown all allegiance to the concept of a public right…”
‘The Metaphysics Of Morals’:
“… do good to your fellow human beings, and your beneficence will produce love of them in you.”
“… the ill of untruthfulness spreads…”
“It is… a duty of virtue not to take malicious pleasure in exposing the faults of others… respect that we give others can arouse their striving to deserve it.”
“There is only one innate right. Freedom (independence from being constrained by another’s choice), insofar as it can coexist with the freedom of every other in accordance with a universal law, is the only original right belonging to every man by virtue of his humanity.”
Sovereignty
‘An Answer To The Question: What Is Enlightenment?’:
“A greater degree of civil freedom seems advantageous to a people’s freedom of spirit and nevertheless puts up insurmountable barriers to it; a lesser degree of the former, on the other hand, provides a space for the latter to expand to its full capacity. Thus when nature has unwrapped, from under this hard shell, the seed from which she cares most tenderly, namely the propensity and calling to thinkfreely, the latter gradually works back upon the mentality of the people (which thereby gradually becomes capable of freedom in acting) and eventually even upon the principles of government, which finds it profitable to itself to treat the human being, who is now more than a machine, in keeping with his dignity.”
‘Groundwork Of The Metaphysics Of Morals’:
“… a rational being… obeys no law other than that which he himself at the same time gives.”
“The concept of every rational being as one who must regard himself as giving universal law through all the maxims of his will, so as to appraise himself and his actions from this point of view, leads to a very fruitful concept dependent upon it, namely that of a kingdom of ends. By a kingdom I understand a systematic union of various rational beings through common laws.”
‘The Critique Of Practical Reason’:
“All the matter of practical rules rests always on subjective conditions, which afford it no universality for rational beings other than a merely conditional one, and they all turn on the principle of one’s own happiness.”
“… laws are possible only in relation to the freedom of the will; but on the presupposition of freedom they are necessary or, conversely, freedom is necessary because those laws are necessary, as practical postulates.”
‘On The Common Saying: That May Be Correct In Theory, But It Is Of No Use In Practice’:
“Nowhere does a practice that ignores all pure rational principles deny theory so arrogantly as in the question of what is required for a good constitution of a state.”
‘Toward Perpetual Peace’:
“… if there were no freedom and no moral law based upon it… then politics would be the whole of practical wisdom, and the concept of right would be an empty thought.”
“… let justice reign even if all the rogues in the world perish because of it…”
‘The Metaphysics Of Morals’:
“A civil constitution, though its realization is subjectively contingent, is still objectively necessary, that is, necessary as a duty.”
“A civil union is not so much a society but rather makes one.”
Virtues
‘Review Of Schulze’s ‘Attempt At Introduction To A Doctrine Of Morals For All Human Beings Regardles Of Different Religions’’:
“Virtues and vices are not essentially different… virtues cannot exist without vices…”
‘Groundwork Of The Metaphysics Of Morals’:
“It is impossible to think of anything at all in the world, or indeed even beyond it, that could be considered good without limitation except a good will. Understanding, wit, judgment and the like, whatever such talents of mind may be called, or courage, resolution and perseverance in one’s plans, as qualities of temperament, are undoubtedly good and desirable for many purposes, but they can also be extremely evil and harmful if the will which is to make use of these gifts of nature, and whose distinctive constitution is therefore called character, is not good.”
“A good will is not good because of what it effects or accomplishes, because of its fitness to attain some proposed end, but only because of its volition, that is, it is good in itself and, regarded for itself, is to be valued incomparably higher than all that could merely be brought about by it in favor of some inclination and indeed, if you will, of the sum of all inclinations.”
“… [in] the will of a rational being… the highest and unconditional good alone can be found.”
“… even wisdom – which otherwise consists more in conduct than in knowledge – still needs science, not in order to learn from it but in order to provide access and durability for its precepts.”
“Nor could one give worse advice to morality than by wanting to derive it from examples. For, every example of it represented to me must itself first be appraised in accordance with principles of morality, as to whether it is also worthy to serve as an original example, that is, as a model; it can by no means authoritatively provide the concept of morality.”
“… skill in the choice of means to one’s own greatest well-being can be calledprudence…”
“… morality, and humanity insofar as it is capable of morality, is that which alone has dignity.”
‘The Critique Of Practical Reason’:
“It is… the moral law, of which we become immediately conscious (as soon as we draw up maxims of the will for ourselves), that first offers itself to us and, inasmuch as reason presents it as a determining ground not to be outweighed by any sensible conditions and indeed quote independent of them, leads directly to the concept of freedom.”
“The maxim of self-love (prudence) merely advises; the law of morality commands.”
“…virtue [is] moral disposition in conflict…”
“The majesty of duty has nothing to do with the enjoyment of life… even though one may want to shake both of them together thoroughly, so as to give them blended, like medicine, to the sick soul, they soon separate themselves…”
“The moral law is the sole determining ground of the pure will.”
“… virtue and happiness together constitute possession of the highest good in a person…”
“… pure practical reason (virtue) can in fact produce consciousness of mastery over one’s inclinations, hence of independence from them and so too from the discontent that always accompanies them…”
“… the supreme good (as the first condition of the highest good) is morality, whereas happiness constitutes its second element but in such a way that it is only the morally conditioned yet necessary result of the former.”
“… the inscrutable wisdom by which we exist is not less worthy of veneration in what it has denied us than in what it has granted us.”
“… humility is not only taught but felt by anyone when he examines himself strictly.”
‘The Metaphysics Of Morals’:
“When one’s aim is not to teach virtue but only to set forth what is right, one need not and should not represent that law of right as itself the incentive to action.”
“… the capacity and considered resolved to withstand a strong but unjust opponent is fortitude and, with respect to what opposes the moral disposition within us, virtue.”
“… prosperity, strength, health, and well-being… could… be considered ends that are duties, so that one has a duty to promote one’s own happiness and not just the happiness of others. – But then the end is not the subject’s happiness but his morality, and happiness is merely a means for removing obstacles to his morality – a permitted means, since no one else has a right to require of me that I sacrifice me ends if these are not immoral. To seek prosperity for its own sake is not directly a duty, but indirectly it can well be a duty, that of warding off poverty insofar as this is a great temptation to vice. But then it is not my happiness but the preservation of my moral integrity that is my end and also my duty.”
“It is only the strength of one’s resolution… that is properly called virtue… Virtue is the strength of a human being’s maxims in fulfilling his duty. – Strength of any kind can be recognized only by the obstacles it can overcome, and in the case of virtue these obstacles are natural inclinations, which can come into conflict with a human being’s moral resolution; and since it is the human being himself who puts these obstacles in the way of his maxims, virtue is not merely a self-constraint, but also a self-constraint in accordance with a principle of inner freedom…”
“… virtue [is] its own end and, despite the benefits it confers on human beings, also its own reward.”
“… the human being is under obligation to virtue (as moral strength). For while the capacity to overcome all opposing sensible impulses can and must be simply presupposed in man on account of his freedom, yet this capacity as strength is something he must acquire; and the way to acquire it is to enhance the moral incentive (the thought of the law), both by contemplating the dignity of the pure rational law in us and by practicing virtue.”
“Virtue is… the moral strength of a human being’s will in fulfilling his duty…”
“The true strength of virtue is a tranquil mind…”
“The vices contrary to… duty are lying, avarice, and false humility (servility)… The virtue that is opposed to all these vices could be called love of honor, a cast of mind far removed from ambition.”
“The greatest violation of a human being’s duty to himself regarded merely as a moral being is the contrary of truthfulness, lying… By a lie a human being throws away and… annihilates his dignity…”
“… self-esteem is a duty of the human being to himself.”
“Moral cognition of oneself, which seeks to penetrate into the depths of one’s heart which are quite difficult to fathom, is the beginning of all human wisdom.”
“Division of duties of love… They are duties of beneficence, gratitude, and sympathy… On the vices of hatred for human beings, directly opposed to love of them… They comprise the loathsome family of envy, ingratitude, and malice.
“To be beneficent, that is, to promote according to one’s means the happiness of others in need, without hoping for something in return, is everyone’s duty. For everyone who finds himself in need wishes to be helped by others.”
“Gratitude consists in honoring a person because of a benefit he has rendered us. Gratitude is a duty… the violation of which can destroy the moral incentive to beneficence in its very principle.”
“Envy is a propensity to view the well-being of others with distress, even though it does not detract from one’s own.”
“The sweetest form of malice is the desire for revenge.”
“It is… a duty of human beings to be forgiving. But this must not be confused with meek toleration of wrongs, renunciation of rigorous means for preventing the recurrence of wrongs by others…”
“… a human being… throwing away his rights and letting others trample on them… would violate his duty to himself.”
“Moderation in one’s demands generally, that is, willing restriction of one’s self-love in view of the self-love of others, is called modesty. Lack of such moderation as regards one’s worthiness to be loved by others is called egotism. But lack of modesty in one’s claims to be respected by others is self-conceit. The respect that I have for others or that another can require from me is therefore recognition of a dignity in other human beings.”
“Arrogance is a kind of ambition in which we demand that others think little of themselves in comparison with us… arrogance demands from others a respect it denies them.”
“… of human beings (a necessary humbling of oneself) serves to guard against the pride that usually comes over those fortunate enough to have the means for beneficence.”
“That virtue can and must be taught already follows from its not being innate…”
“The rules for practicing virtue aim at a frame of mind that is both valiant and cheerful in fulfilling its duties. For, virtue not only has to muster all its forces to overcome the obstacles it must contend with; it also involves sacrificing many of the joys of life…”
“The divine end with regard to the human race can be thought only as proceeding from love, that is, as the happiness of human beings.”
‘Critique Of Pure Reason’:
“Happiness is the satisfaction of all of our inclinations (extensive, with regard to their manifoldness… intensive, with regard to degree… protensive, with regard to duration). The practical law from the motive of happiness I call pragmatic (rule of prudence); but that which is such that it has no other motive than the worthiness to be happy I call moral (moral law). The first advises us what to do if we want to partake of happiness; the second commands how we should behave in order even to be worthy of happiness. The first is grounded on empirical principles, for except by means of experience I can know neither which inclinations there are that would be satisfied nor what the natural causes are that could satisfy them. The second abstracts from inclinations and natural means of satisfying them, and considers only the freedom of a rational being in general and the necessary conditions under which alone it is in agreement with the distribution of happiness in accordance with principles, and thus it at least can rest on mere ideas of pure reason and be cognized a priori.”
“… just as the moral principles are necessary in accordance with reason in its practical use, it is equally necessary to assume in accordance with reason in its theoretical use that everyone has cause to hope for happiness in the same measure as he has made himself worth of it in his conduct, and that the system of morality is therefore inseparably combined with the system of happiness, though only in the idea of pure reason.”
“… happiness in exact proportion with the morality of rational beings, through which they are worthy of it, alone constitutes the highest good of a world…”
Final Thoughts
Looking at this comprehensive exploration of Kant’s philosophy, what strikes me most is how his work fundamentally reshaped our understanding of human reason, freedom, and moral responsibility. Kant’s central insight—that we can never know things as they truly are, only as they appear to us through the structures of our own minds—remains profoundly influential. His “Copernican revolution” in philosophy showed that rather than our minds conforming to reality, reality (as we experience it) conforms to the categories and structures of our minds. This insight continues to reverberate through philosophy, cognitive science, and even physics today.
Perhaps Kant’s most enduring contribution lies in his moral philosophy, particularly the concept of autonomy and the categorical imperative. By grounding morality not in consequences or divine commands but in the rational nature of human beings themselves, Kant offered a vision of human dignity that has shaped modern concepts of human rights and democratic governance. His insistence that we must treat humanity, whether in ourselves or others, always as an end and never merely as a means, provides a powerful foundation for ethical thinking that transcends cultural and religious boundaries.
Yet reading Kant today, we’re also reminded of the tensions and paradoxes in his system. How can we be both phenomenally determined and noumenally free? How can pure reason guide us to moral action while remaining separate from the empirical world? These questions continue to challenge philosophers, but perhaps that’s part of Kant’s genius—he didn’t offer easy answers but instead mapped the fundamental tensions of human existence. His call for intellectual courage—”Have courage to use your own understanding!”—remains as vital today as it was during the Enlightenment, reminding us that the project of human reason and dignity is never complete but always ongoing.
Thanks for reading!