All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.

I am myself by inclination an investigator.

Feminine traits are called weaknesses. People joke about them; fools ridicule them; but reasonable persons see very well that those traits are just the tools for the management of men, and for the use of men for female designs.

[R]eason is... given to us as a practical faculty, that is, as one that influences the will.

Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity...No thing is required for this enlightenment.. .except freedom; and the freedom in question is the least harmful of all, namely, the freedom to use reason publicly in all matters.

I am an investigator by inclination. I feel a great thirst for knowledge.

Things which we see are not by themselves what we see ... It remains completely unknown to us what the objects may be by themselves and apart from the receptivity of our senses. We know nothing but our manner of perceiving them.