Immanuel Kant Quotes
Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher of the Enlightenment born in Konigsberg, Prussia. His Critique of Pure Reason sought to reconcile rationalism and empiricism by arguing that human cognition shapes experience through innate categories. The quotes below are attributed to Immanuel Kant, organized by topic.
Immanuel Kant on God
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Attributed to Immanuel Kant:
“Religion is the recognition of all our duties as divine commands.”
Immanuel Kant on Happiness
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Attributed to Immanuel Kant:
“Happiness is not an ideal of reason but of imagination.”
Immanuel Kant on Knowledge
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Attributed to Immanuel Kant:
“Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.”
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Attributed to Immanuel Kant:
“All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason.”
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Attributed to Immanuel Kant:
“Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.”
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Attributed to Immanuel Kant:
“It is beyond a doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience.”
Immanuel Kant on Mind
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Attributed to 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.”
Immanuel Kant on Nature
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Attributed to Immanuel Kant:
“Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.”
Immanuel Kant on Virtue
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Attributed to Immanuel Kant:
“Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.”
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Attributed to Immanuel Kant:
“Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end and never merely as a means.”
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Attributed to Immanuel Kant:
“He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men.”
Things actually not said by Immanuel Kant
A number of widely-shared lines are circulated as Immanuel Kant but are in fact from someone else. Did Immanuel Kant say these? No. Each entry below pairs the line with the person who actually wrote it.
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Did Immanuel Kant say this? No.
“Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.”
This line is from Herbert Spencer's Education: Intellectual, Moral and Physical (1861). It is sometimes misattributed to Kant but does not appear in any of Kant's works.