Quotes About Rationality

Immanuel Kant

Handle nur nach derjenigen Maxime, durch die du zugleich wollen kannst, dass sie ein allgemeines Gesetz werde.

Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Nothing is required for this enlightenment except freedom; and the freedom in question is the least harmful of all, namely, the freedom to use with and publicly in all matters.

Immanuel Kant

Aufklärung ist der Ausgang des Menschen aus seiner selbstverschuldeten Unmündigkeit. Unmündigkeit ist das Unvermögen, sich seines Verstandes ohne Leitung eines anderen zu bedienen.

A great part, perhaps the greatest part, of the business of our reason consists in the analysation of the conceptions which we already possess of objects.

I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith. ? Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason

The public use of one's reason must always be free, and it alone can bring about enlightenment among men.

We now concern ourselves with a labor less spectacular but nevertheless not unrewarding: that of making the terrain for these majestic moral edifices level and firm enough to be built upon; for under this ground there are all sorts of passageways, such as moles might have dug, left over from reason's vain but confident treasure hunting, that make every building insecure. (A319/B377)

O homem, e, duma maneira geral, todo o ser racional, existe como fim em si mesmo, não só como meio para o uso arbitrário desta ou daquela vontade. Pelo contrário, em todas as suas ações, tanto nas que se dirigem a ele mesmo como nas que se dirigem a outros seres racionais, ele tem sempre de ter considerado simultaneamente como fim.

Die Aufklärung ist der Ausgang des Menschen aus seiner selbstverschuldeten Unmündigkeit. Unmündigkeit ist das Unvermögen, sich seines Verstandes ohne Leitung eines anderen zu bedienen. Selbstverschuldet ist diese Unmündigkeit, wenn die Ursache derselben nicht am Mangel des Verstandes, sondern der Entschließung und des Mutes liegt, sich seiner ohne Leitung eines andern zu bedienen. Sapere aude! Habe Mut, dich deines eigenen Verstandes zu bedienen!

whose true object is to shed the clearest light on every step which reason takes.

The possession of power inevitably spoils the free use of reason.

The crux of his new philosophy is this: What assurance do we have that our a priori (rational) thoughts have in reality a relation to objects that exist apart from us?

Act upon a maxim which, at the same time, involves its own universal validity for every rational being.

T]o be unfaithful to my maxim of prudence may often be very advantageous to me, although to abide by it is certainly safer.

The sight of a being who is not adorned with a single feature of a pure and good will, enjoying unbroken prosperity, can never give pleasure to an impartial rational spectator. Thus a good will appears to constitute the indispensable condition even of being worthy of happiness.

The understanding cannot intuit anything, the senses cannot think anything. Only from their union can knowledge arise.

Gustavo Solivellas dice: La felicidad no es un ideal de la razón, sino de la imaginación (Immanuel Kant)

The pre-eminent good which we call moral can therefore consist in nothing else than the conception of law in itself, which certainly is only possible in a rational being, in so far as this conception, and not the expected effect, determines the will. This is a good which is already present in the person who acts accordingly, and we have not to wait for it to appear first in the result. *

I have never been more sane, coldly sane, self-interestedly sane. I am a woman.

One might accept death reasoningly, with every aspect of the conscious mind, but the body was a brute beast that knew nothing of reason.

if we look forward to a future in which mankind behaves rationally and avoids self-destruction, we can visualize a world that will be more complicated than the one we know today, but a world that will run better and, most of all, a world in which the individual will count for more, not less.

But people who are capable of thinking clearly are in a minority, of course.