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

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.

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.

If justice perishes, then it is no longer worthwhile for men to live upon the earth.

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

We can never, even by the strictest examination, get completely behind the secret springs of action.

I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith.

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

All human cognition begins with intuitions, proceeds from thence to conceptions, and ends with ideas.

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

War seems to be ingrained in human nature, and even to be regarded as something noble to which man is inspired by his love of honor, without selfish motives.

To be great is to be misunderstood.

Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

There is no element of genius without some form of madness.

I have nothing to declare except my genius.

It is not the genius at the top giving directions that makes people great. It is great people that make the guy at the top look like a genius.

All geniuses die young.

The most tragic thing in the world is a man of genius who is not a man of honor.