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

Give me matter and I will build a world out of it.

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

Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity.

Heaven has given human beings three things to balance the odds of life: hope, sleep, and laughter.

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

The cultivation of reason leads humanity sooner to misery than happiness.

Have patience awhile; slanders are not long-lived. Truth is the child of time; erelong she shall appear to vindicate thee.

Innocence is a splendid thing, only it has the misfortune not to keep very well and to be easily misled.

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

Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.

The busier we are, the more acutely we feel that we live, the more conscious we are of life.

Only the descent into the hell of self-knowledge can pave the way to godliness.

Genius is the ability to independently arrive at and understand concepts that would normally have to be taught by another person.

Simply to acquiesce in skepticism can never suffice to overcome the restlessness of reason.

Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.

The main point of enlightenment is man’s release from his self-caused immaturity, primarily in matters of religion.

The political core of any movement for freedom in the society has to have the political imperative to protect free speech.

The idea of freedom is inspiring. But what does it mean? If you are free in a political sense but have no food, what’s that? The freedom to starve?

Freedom is absolutely necessary for the progress in science and the liberal arts.

No prison can ever contain me.

No prison can ever contain me.

A loving relationship is one in which the loved one is free to be himself – to laugh with me, but never at me; to cry with me, but never because of me; to love life, to love himself, to love being loved. Such a relationship is based upon freedom and can never grow in a jealous heart.

Feel free to love anything but not everything.

You always have an opportunity to see the past for what it is, and live freely in today.