People are often most proud of precisely those things of which they should most be ashamed.

One rational standard of action is how well it promotes the end it seeks. Another standard is whether it aims at ends which are good. Both of these, but especially the former, depend on judgments of fact.

It is a culturally interesting (but also deeply depressing) fact that many religious claims seem to retain their emotional power for believers only if taken in ways that are intellectually unsupportable and even morally contemptible.

Those who employ their modest talents as best they can do make a contribution to a better human future.

I don't think Kant's theory looks bad to people except insofar as they have misunderstood it (for instance, as heartless and ironheaded, or as committed to an absurd metaphysical conception of freedom that violates Kant's own philosophy).

Fichte is concerned with freedom as non-domination.

That Hegel's theory is derivative from Fichte's does not prevent it from being strikingly original and of independent value.