Immanuel Kant

Our list of Immanuel Kant Quotes

We are not rich by what we possess but by what we can do without.
(2 minutes read)

arrow down

The Immanuel Kant's quote says that wealth is not defined by what we own but by what we can do without.

Today we define an individual's wealth by how much money he has, but this assessment is wrong.

Instead, a person who can do without some material object is far richer than someone who needs that thing but has money. Not depending on something is our standard of evaluation.

If we do not depend on a specific item, then we are aware that even without that item, we can continue our activities, deal with our problems and live our lives.

Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play.

Work in Progress...

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.

Work in Progress...

Two things awe me most, the starry sky above me and the moral law within me.

Work in Progress...

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.

Work in Progress...

Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.

Work in Progress...

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.

Work in Progress...

All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.

Work in Progress...

To be is to do.

Work in Progress...

If man makes himself a worm he must not complain when he is trodden on.

Work in Progress...

Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination.

Work in Progress...

Live your life as though your every act were to become a universal law.

Work in Progress...

By a lie, a man... annihilates his dignity as a man.

Work in Progress...

Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end.

Work in Progress...

What can I know? What ought I to do? What can I hope?

Work in Progress...

It is beyond a doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience.

Work in Progress...

Immaturity is the incapacity to use one's intelligence without the guidance of another.

Work in Progress...

Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.

Work in Progress...

May you live your life as if the maxim of your actions were to become universal law.

Work in Progress...

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.

Work in Progress...

I had therefore to remove knowledge, in order to make room for belief.

Work in Progress...

Metaphysics is a dark ocean without shores or lighthouse, strewn with many a philosophic wreck.

Work in Progress...

It is not God's will merely that we should be happy, but that we should make ourselves happy.

Work in Progress...

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.

Work in Progress...

Act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.

Work in Progress...

From such crooked wood as that which man is made of, nothing straight can be fashioned.

Work in Progress...

Ingratitude is the essence of vileness.

Work in Progress...

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.'

Work in Progress...

Religion is the recognition of all our duties as divine commands.

Work in Progress...

Out of timber so crooked as that from which man is made nothing entirely straight can be carved.

Work in Progress...

A categorical imperative would be one which represented an action as objectively necessary in itself, without reference to any other purpose.

Work in Progress...

So act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.

Work in Progress...

Nothing is divine but what is agreeable to reason.

Work in Progress...

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.

Work in Progress...

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?

Work in Progress...

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.

Work in Progress...

But although all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it arises from experience.

Work in Progress...

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.

Work in Progress...

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.

Work in Progress...

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.

Work in Progress...

Look closely. The beautiful may be small.

Work in Progress...

I had to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith.

Work in Progress...

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.

Work in Progress...

One who makes himself a worm cannot complain afterwards if people step on him.

Work in Progress...

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.

Work in Progress...

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.

Work in Progress...
Buy Me A Coffee

© 2022, Matteo Drelli

Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy