God put a secret art into the forces of Nature so as to enable it to fashion itself out of chaos into a perfect world system.

Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance. Dare to know!

[A ruler is merely] the trustee of the rights of other men and he must always stand in dread of having in some way violated these rights.

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

Great minds think for themselves.

It is never too late to become reasonable and wise.

. . . as to moral feeling, this supposed special sense, the appeal to it is indeed superficial when those who cannot think believe that feeling will help them out, even in what concerns general laws: and besides, feelings which naturally differ infinitely in degree cannot furnish a uniform standard of good and evil, nor has any one a right to form judgments for others by his own feelings. . . .