Kant quotes
There is nothing more offensive for a man than to call him a fool, for a woman to say that she is ugly.
One of the undoubted and pure joys is rest after work.
There are some misconceptions that cannot be refuted. It is necessary to impart to the erring mind such knowledge as will enlighten it. Then the delusions will disappear by themselves.
Morality must lie in character.
Beauty is a symbol of moral goodness.
A person has a tendency to communicate with his own kind, because in this state he feels more like a human being, that is, he feels the development of his natural inclinations. But he also has a strong desire to be alone.
In disputes, a calm state of mind, combined with benevolence, is a sign of the presence of a certain force, due to which the mind is confident of its victory.
All that is called decency is nothing more than good looks.
Cunning is the way of thinking of very limited people and is very different from the mind that it resembles in appearance.
Great ambition has long turned the prudent into madmen. It is human nature to practice moderation, not only for the sake of future health, but also for present well-being.
He who fearfully worries about losing his life will never rejoice in it.
Beautiful is something that belongs solely to taste.
Duty is respect for the rights of others.
Some books would be much clearer if they didn't try so hard to make them clear.
Punishments given in a fit of anger do not achieve their goal.
The meaning of the moral law is so extensive that it is valid not only for people, but for all rational beings in general.
Two things always fill the soul with new and ever stronger surprise and awe, the more often and longer we reflect on them - this is the starry sky above me and the moral law within me.
Morality teaches not how to become happy, but how to become worthy of happiness.
Ethics is a philosophy of good will, not just good action.
To be refuted is nothing to fear; You should be afraid of something else - being misunderstood.
Happiness is an ideal not of reason, but of imagination.
Stubbornness has only the form of character, but not its content.
You can't cut anything straight out of a log as crooked as a person.
Man and, in general, every rational being exists as an end in itself.
When justice disappears, there is nothing left to add value to people's lives.
Give a person everything he wants, and at that very moment he will feel that this is not everything.
The ability to pose reasonable questions is already an important and necessary sign of intelligence and insight.
The subjects that children are taught must be appropriate to their age, otherwise there is a danger that they will develop cleverness, fashion, and vanity.
Every natural science contains as much truth as there are mathematicians.
Can he who becomes a creeping worm then complain that he has been crushed?
Character consists of the ability to act according to principles.
In married life, the married couple must form, as it were, a single moral personality.
The greatest sensual pleasure, which does not contain any admixture of disgust, is, in a healthy state, rest after work.
Immanuel Kant - the first of the greatest German philosophers
Immanuel Kant is rightfully considered the world's greatest luminary of philosophy after Aristotle and Plato. The future scientist was born in 1724 in Konigsberg into the family of a master saddler. The father dreamed of giving his only son a good education and making him a minister of the church. Young Kant graduated from a local university and began to earn his living by giving private lessons, but at the same time constantly improved his education. As a result, he defended his dissertation and began teaching logic and metaphysics at the university.
Kant subordinated his entire life to a strict schedule and punctually followed it all his life. The scientist's biographers note that his life was uneventful: he subordinated his existence entirely to intellectual work.
The scientist had friends, but never skimped on his studies for the sake of communication; he could be carried away by beautiful and intelligent women, but he never allowed passion to carry him away and distract him from the main thing, that is, from scientific work.
Best Quotes
Calling for courage is already half the same as instilling it.
Everything we say must be true, but it does not follow that we are obliged to publicly express every truth.
All culture and art that adorn humanity, the best social order, are all the fruits of unsociability.
Genius is the talent for inventing something that cannot be taught or learned.
Stupidity is a fault and there is no cure for it.
Virtue denotes courage and bravery and therefore presupposes an enemy.
Duty! You are a sublime, great word, there is nothing pleasant in you that would flatter people.
If we need to help science, then we should reveal difficulties and even look for those that secretly interfere with it...
The life of people devoted only to pleasure without reason and without morality has no value.
The law that lives in us is called conscience. Conscience is, in fact, the application of our actions to this law.
When modesty disappears, there is nothing left to add value to people's lives.
The color on our face gives us away when we are lying, but it does not always serve as evidence of a lie. We often blush at the shamelessness of someone who accuses us of something.
The beauty of an act lies, first of all, in the fact that it is performed easily and as if without any stress.
He who got rid of excesses got rid of deprivations.
People would run away from each other if they saw each other in complete frankness.
Moral value should be seen only in the fact that an action is performed out of a sense of duty.
The responsibility towards oneself is that a person maintain human dignity in himself.
Renouncing your inner conviction is a base act.
Giving children rewards all the time is not good. Through this they become selfish, and from here a corrupt mindset develops.
Work is the best way to enjoy life.
Those people whose lives have the most value are the least afraid of death.
Suffering is a motivation to action.
Ethics is a philosophy of persuasion.
Constantly trembling for his precious or worthless life, he will never breathe a deep breath of freedom, finding all the joy of being.
Acting according to the dictates of your heart, be guided by reason and faith - your maximum will become a law for others.
It is not for nothing that justice is considered a universal measure of life, the value of which invariably increases after the disappearance of justice. – Immanuel Kant
Women are characterized by emotionality, warmth and participation. By choosing the beautiful and rejecting the useful, ladies show their essence.
Society and the tendency to communicate sets people apart, then a person feels in demand when he is most fully realized. Using natural inclinations, one can obtain unique masterpieces that he could never create alone, without society.
Immanuel Kant: Sometimes we are ashamed of friends who also accuse us of treason, incompetence or ingratitude.
Ambition has become a litmus indicator of restraint and prudence.
Character is forged over years, built by principles - fate moves along them, like milestones.
Man is insatiable - he will never be satisfied with what he has. He is constantly not enough - this is both valor and weakness.
Don't be a worm and no one will crush you. Become human.
Views on ethical theory
The philosopher studies ethics in detail, and expresses his attitude in works that later became famous - “Fundamentals of the Metaphysics of Morals” and “Critique of Practical Reason”. According to the views of the philosopher, moral principles originate from practical reason, which develops into will. A characteristic feature of the ethics of the thinker is that non-moral views and arguments do not affect moral principles. He takes as a guide those norms that come from “pure” moral will. The scientist believes that there is something that unites moral standards and is looking for it.
The thinker introduces the concept of “hypothetical imperative” (also called conditional or relative). The imperative is understood as a moral law, a compulsion to action. A hypothetical imperative is a principle of action that is effective in achieving a specific goal.
Also, the philosopher introduces the opposite concept - the “categorical imperative”, which should be understood as a single supreme principle. This principle must prescribe actions that are objectively good. The categorical imperative can be described by the following Kantian rule: one should act guided by a principle that can be made a general law for all people.
Wise Quotes
All people have a moral sense, a categorical imperative. Since this feeling does not always motivate a person to actions that bring him earthly benefit, therefore, there must be some basis, some motivation for moral behavior that lies outside this world. All this necessarily requires the existence of immortality, a higher court and God.
Time is not something objective and real, it is not a substance, not an accident, not a relation, but a subjective condition, by the nature of the human mind necessary for the coordination among themselves of everything sensually perceived according to a certain law and pure contemplation.
All that is called decency is nothing more than good looks.
Morality must lie in character.
Great ambition has long turned the prudent into madmen.
It is human nature to practice moderation, not only for the sake of future health, but also for present well-being.
Every natural science contains as much truth as there are mathematicians.
Happiness is an ideal not of reason, but of imagination.
The law that lives in us is called conscience. Conscience is, in fact, the application of our actions to this law.
The inability to see separates a person from the world of things. The inability to hear separates a person from the world of people.
The ability to pose reasonable questions is already an important and necessary sign of intelligence and insight.
In disputes, a calm state of mind, combined with benevolence, is a sign of the presence of a certain force, due to which the mind is confident of its victory.
The greatest sensual pleasure, which does not contain any impurity or aversion, is, in a healthy state, rest after work.
Women even make the male sex more sophisticated.
If we could understand how a person thinks, that way of thinking that manifests itself through actions both internal and external, if we could penetrate into his way of thinking so deeply as to understand his mechanisms, all his driving forces, even the most insignificant, and also, if we could understand what external causes act on these mechanisms, we could calculate the future behavior of this person with the accuracy of the ellipse of the Moon or the Sun, without ceasing to repeat that the person is free.
Beautiful is something that belongs solely to taste.
The human mind is created in such a way that it can imagine expediency only as the action of a rational will.
The life of people devoted only to pleasure without reason and without morality has no value.
The greatest sensual pleasure, which does not contain any impurity or aversion, is, in a healthy state, rest after work.
Give me matter and I will show you how the world should be formed from it.
What are antinomies?
Antinomies are statements that contradict each other. Kant cites four of the most famous antinomies to support his theory of reason and experience.
- The world (Universe, Space) has a beginning and an end, i.e. boundaries, since everything in the world has a beginning and an end. However, the Universe is infinite and unknowable by the human mind.
- All the most complex things can be broken down into the simplest elements. But there is nothing simple in the world, everything is complex and the more we unpack, the more difficult it is for us to explain the results obtained.
- There is freedom in the world, however, all living beings are constantly subject to the laws of nature
- The world has a first cause (God). But at the same time, there is no root cause, everything is random, like the very existence of the Universe.
How can these theories and antitheories be explained? Kant argued that in order to understand them and come to a common conclusion, faith is needed. Kant did not rebel against science at all, he only said that science is not at all omnipotent and sometimes it is impossible to solve a problem, even relying on all kinds of scientific methods.
Quotes with meaning
The subjects that children are taught must be appropriate to their age, otherwise there is a danger that they will develop cleverness, fashion, and vanity.
Those people whose lives have the most value are the least afraid of death.
Give a person everything he desires, and at that very moment he will feel that this is not everything.
Poetry is a play of feelings into which reason introduces a system; eloquence is a matter of reason, which is enlivened by feeling.
Duty! You are a sublime, great word. This is precisely the great thing that elevates a person above himself.
In married life, the married couple must form, as it were, a single moral personality.
There is nothing more offensive for a man than to call him a fool, for a woman to say that she is ugly.
There are some misconceptions that cannot be refuted. It is necessary to impart to the erring mind such knowledge as will enlighten it. Then the delusions will disappear by themselves.
He who fearfully worries about losing his life will never rejoice in it.
In married life, the married couple must form, as it were, a single moral personality.
Every natural science contains as much truth as there are mathematicians.
In all objects, both external and internal, it is only by the relation of time that the mind can decide what comes before, what comes after, i.e. what is cause and what is effect.
Time is not something objective and real, it is not a substance, not an accident, not a relation, but a subjective condition, by the nature of the human mind necessary for the coordination among themselves of everything sensually perceived according to a certain law and pure contemplation.
All people have a moral sense, a categorical imperative. Since this feeling does not always motivate a person to actions that bring him earthly benefit, therefore, there must be some basis, some motivation for moral behavior that lies outside this world. All this necessarily requires the existence of immortality, a higher court and God.
Give a person everything he desires, and at that very moment he will feel that this is not everything.
There is nothing more offensive for a man than to call him a fool, for a woman to say that she is ugly.
If we could understand how a person thinks, that way of thinking that manifests itself through actions both internal and external, if we could penetrate into his way of thinking so deeply as to understand his mechanisms, all his driving forces, even the most insignificant, and also, if we could understand what external causes act on these mechanisms, we could calculate the future behavior of this person with the accuracy of the ellipse of the Moon or the Sun, without ceasing to repeat that the person is free.
The life of people devoted only to pleasure without reason and without morality has no value.
The idea of time does not arise from the senses, but is presupposed by them. For it is only by means of the idea of time that one can imagine whether what affects the senses is simultaneous or successive; sequence does not give rise to the concept of time, but only points to it.
The point is that I don’t understand what the word after means if it is not already preceded by the concept of time. After all, what happens one after another is what exists at different times, just as to exist together means to exist at the same time.
He who fearfully worries about losing his life will never rejoice in it.
People would run away from each other if they saw each other in complete frankness.
We often blush because of the shamelessness of another who accuses us of something.
Morality must lie in character.
Two periods in the work of Immanuel Kant
Kant's scientific and philosophical activity can be divided into two time periods: pre-critical and critical.
The first period falls on the 50-60s of the 18th century. At this stage, the scientist is interested in the secrets of the universe and he acts more like a mathematician, physicist, chemist, biologist, that is, a materialist who, with the help of scientific dialectics, tries to explain the laws of nature and its self-development. The main problem of interest to the scientist during this period is the explanation of the state of the Universe, the Cosmos. He was the first to connect the ebb and flow of the seas with the phases of the Moon and put forward a hypothesis about the origin of our galaxy from a gas nebula.
In the later “critical” period - the 70-80s - Kant completely reoriented himself to the problems of human morality and morality. The main questions that the scientist tries to answer: what is a person? what was he born for? what is the purpose of human existence? what is happiness? what are the main laws of human coexistence?
A feature of Immanuel Kant's philosophy is that he made the subject of study not the object, but the subject of cognitive activity. Only the specifics of the activity of a subject cognizing the world can determine possible ways of cognition.
