Quotes About Enlightenment

That kings should be philosophers, or philosophers kings is neither to be expected nor to be desired, for the possession of power inevitably corrupts reason's free judgment. However, that kings or sovereign peoples (who rule themselves by laws of equality) should not allow the class of philosophers to disappear or to be silent, but should permit them to speak publicly is indispensable to the enlightenment of their affairs.

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

A person born blind cannot frame the smallest conception of darkness, because he has none of light. The savage knows nothing of poverty, because he does not know wealth and the ignorant has no conception of his ignorance, because he has none of knowledge.

Nonage [immaturity] is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance. Dare to know!

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.

When one is very close to Truth itself, truthfulness vanishes.

There is no light where I am. If any comes it is not enlightenment but lightning.

We are giving the world back to man, and man back to himself. Man shall no longer be vile, but noble. We shall not destroy his mind in return for an immortal soul. Without a free, vigorous and creative mind, man is but an animal, and he will die like an animal, without any shred of a soul. We return to man his arts, his literature, his sciences, his independence to think and feel as an individual, not to be bound to dogma like a slave, to rot in his chains.

Religion will never show the way.

Jokes of the proper kind, properly told, can do more to enlighten questions of politics, philosophy, and literature than any number of dull arguments.

There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere.

All knowledge is one. When a light brightens and illuminates a corner of a room, it adds to the general illumination of the entire room. Over and over again, scientific discoveries have provided answers to problems that had no apparent connection with the phenomena that gave rise to the discovery.

Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition.

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.

El hombre más irreversiblemente estúpido es aquel que ignora su sabiduría.

You may uncover more and, eventually, what seems altogether a mystery to us now may unfold and become plain.

Proti hlouposti ani sami bohové nic nezmohou.

We are gaining the knowledge; science is giving us that. Now we need wisdom as well.

Yo intento enseñar porque, consiga o no instruir a otros, consigo infaliblemente instruirme a mí mismo.

The Voice said, Even if I knew everything, I could not know that I know everything. Murray said, That sounds like a bit of Eastern philosophy - something that sounds profound precisely because it has no meaning.

Enlightened self-interest' they call it.

Ignorance is the root of all evil.

Reading is like looking through several windows which open to an infinite landscape....For me life without reading would be like being in prison, it would be as if my spirit were in a straightjacket; life would be a very dark and narrow place.