Quotes About Ethics

the cultivation of reason leads humanity sooner to misery than happiness

It is impossible to conceive anything at all in the world, or even out of it, which can be taken as good without qualification, except a good will.

Une politique valable ne peut faire un pas sans rendre hommage à la morale.

Now I say: man and generally any rational being exists as an end in himself, not merely as a means to be arbitrarily used by this or that will, but in all his actions, whether they concern himself or other rational beings, must always be regarded at the same time as an end.

in its practical purpose the footpath of freedom is the only one on which it is possible to make use of reason in our conduct. Hence it is as impossible for the subtlest philosophy as for the commonest reasoning to argue freedom away.

Immanuel Kant

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

Since the human race's natural end is to make steady cultural progress, its moral end is to be conceived as progressing toward the better. And this progress may well be occasionally interrupted, but it will never be broken off.

No one may force anyone to be happy according to his manner of imagining the well-being of other men; instead, everyone may seek his happiness in the way that seems good to him as long as he does not infringe on the freedom of others to pursue a similar purpose, when such freedom may coexist with the freedom of every other man according to a possible and general law.

By a lie a man throws away, and as it were, annihilates his dignity as a man.

All so-called moral interest consists simply in respect for the law.

Ich kann, weil ich will, was ich muss.

You must, therefore you can. A free will and a will subject to moral laws are one and the same thing.

The enjoyment of power inevitably corrupts the judgement of reason, and perverts its liberty.

From such crooked timber as humanity is made of, no straight thing was ever constructed.

I express the principle of one's freedom as a human being in this formula: No one can compel me (in accordance with his beliefs about the welfare of others) to be happy after his fashion.

Ayd?nlanma, insan?n kendi suçuyla düÅŸmüÅŸ olduÄŸu ergin olmama durumundan kurtulmas?d?r.

Obra como si la máxima de tu acción pudiera ser erigida, por tu voluntad, en ley universal de la naturaleza

For now we see that when we conceive ourselves as free we transfer ourselves into the world of understanding as members of it, and recognise the autonomy of the will with its consequence, morality; whereas, if we conceive ourselves as under obligation we consider ourselves as belonging to the world of sense, and at the same time to the world of understanding.

Only by what a man does heedless of enjoyment, in complete freedom and independently of what he can produce passively from the hand of nature, does he give absolute worth to his existence, as the real existence of a person. Happiness, with all its plethora of pleasures, is far from being an unconditioned good.

Thus there is an analogy between the juridical relation of human actions and the mechanical relation of moving forces. I never can do anything to another man without giving him a right to do the same to me on the same conditions; just as no body can act with its moving force on another body without thereby causing the other to react equally against it.

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

If we were to suppose that mankind never can or will be in a better condition, it seems impossible to justify by any kind of theodicy the mere fact that such a race of corrupt beings could have been created on earth at all.

Prudence reproaches; conscience accuses.