Tao Te Ching
Immanuel Kant
1724 – 1804 CE
Credited with creating a paradigm shift responsible for much of modern philosophy, psychology, metaphysics, sociology, linguistics, and political theory; Kant was a quiet and introverted philosopher whose daily schedule was so precise that neighbors were said to set their watches by it. Child of the Enlightenment and father of the Romantic movement, he barely traveled but became “the central figure of modern philosophy,” inspired the American transcendentalism of Emerson and Thoreau, and a profound influence on many important thinkers like Hegel, Novalis, G. K. Chesterton, Schopenhauer, Bertrand Russell, Max Weber, Jean Piaget, and Noam Chomsky.
Eras
Chinese
Qing dynasty (1644 – 1912 CE)Sources
Unlisted Sources
H. S. Chamberlain
Lectures on Ethics
Metaphysics of Morals (1909)
Perpetual Peace (1795)
Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (1783)
Quotes by Immanuel Kant (21 quotes)
“A constitution of the greatest possible human freedom must place at its foundation and for all its laws, the liberty of every individual co-existing with the liberty of every other.”
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“In a perfect state, no punishments at all would be necessary.”
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“Skepticism is a resting-place for human reason, where it can reflect upon its dogmatic wanderings… but it is no dwelling-place for permanent settlement.”
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“Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.”
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“Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.”
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“I had to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith.”
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“I do not mean by this a critique of books and systems, but of the faculty of reason in general to be able to strive after understanding independent of experience.”
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“By a lie a man throws away and annihilates his dignity as a man.”
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“I freely admit that the remembrance of David Hume was the very thing that many years ago first interrupted my dogmatic slumber and gave a completely different direction to my researches in the field of speculative philosophy.”
from Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (1783)
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“When I could have used a wife, I could not support one; and when I could support one, I no longer needed any.”
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“Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing wonder and awe—the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.”
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“The human heart refuses to believe in a universe without a purpose.”
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“The function of the true State is to impose the minimum restrictions and safeguard the maximum liberties of the people, and it never regards the person as a thing.”
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“Seek not the favor of the multitude; it is seldom got by honest and lawful means. But seek the testimony of the few; and number not voices, but weigh them.”
from Metaphysics of Morals (1909)
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“Enlightenment is man's release from his self-incurred inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. Have courage to use your own reason!”
from Metaphysics of Morals (1909)
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“Christ has brought the kingdom of God nearer to earth; but, he has been misunderstood; and in place of God's kingdom the kingdom of the priest has been established”
from H. S. Chamberlain
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“With men, the state of nature is not a state of peace, but war; if not of open war, then at least ever ready to break out.”
from Perpetual Peace (1795)
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“The desire of a man for a woman is not directed at her because she is a human being but because she is a woman. That she is a human being is of no concern to him.”
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Quotes about Immanuel Kant (7 quotes)
“Kant, like Darwin, gave rise to a movement which he would have detested... The stages in the evolution of ideas have... developed by steps that each seem natural, into their opposites... governed throughout by external circumstances and the reflection of these circumstances in human emotions.”
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“Kant—in this respect almost alone among the philosophers—was much bothered by the common opinion that philosophy is only for the few, precisely because of its moral implications. [He] discovered 'he scandal of reason,' that is the fact that our mind is not capable of certain and verifiable knowledge regarding matters and questions that it nevertheless cannot help thinking about.”
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“the ideality of time together with that of space is the key to all true metaphysics because it makes room for a quite different order of things than that of nature. This is why Kant is so great.”
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“Matter as known to us, is but a form of mind [and] the supreme figure in this idealistic development was Immanuel Kant, perfect archetype of the abstract philosopher who brought back to life, magician-wise, the dear beliefs of the ancient faith. Even Schopenhauer and Nietzsche accepted his reduction of the world to mere appearance as the indispensable preliminary to every possible philosophy. And then Darwin came…”
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“Archimedes and Kant are as much realists as blacksmiths: they deal with intellections as vigorously and drastically as the joiner with his chisel and board”
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“In Immanuel Kant, the voice of ancestral faith speaks amid the skepticism of the Enlightenment.”
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“Kant... stated that he had 'found it necessary to deny knowledge... to make room for faith,' but all he had 'denied' was knowledge of things that are unknowable, and he had not made room for faith but for thought.”
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