[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.

By a lie, a man... annihilates his dignity as a man.

Suicide is not abominable because God prohibits it; God prohibits it because it is abominable.

What are the aims which are at the same time duties? They are perfecting of ourselves, the happiness of others.

Both love of mankind, and respect for their rights are duties; the former however is only a conditional, the latter an unconditional, purely imperative duty, which he must be perfectly certain not to have transgressed who would give himself up to the secret emotions arising from benevolence.

The schematicism by which our understanding deals with the phenomenal world ... is a skill so deeply hidden in the human soul that we shall hardly guess the secret trick that Nature here employs.

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