A categorical imperative would be one which represented an action as objectively necessary in itself, without reference to any other purpose.

Deaths, births, and marriages, considering how much they are separately dependent on the freedom of the human will, should seem to be subject to no law according to which any calculation could be made beforehand of their amount; and yet the yearly registers of these events in great countries prove that they go on with as much conformity to the laws of nature as the oscillations of the weather.

Better the whole people perish than that injustice be done

He who has made great moral progress ceases to pray

Do the right thing because it is right.

I shall never forget my mother, for it was she who planted and nurtured the first seeds of good within me. She opened my heart to the lasting impressions of nature; she awakened my understanding and extended my horizon and her percepts exerted an everlasting influence upon the course of my life.

Reason should investigate its own parameters before declaring its omniscience.