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!

Through laziness and cowardice a large part of mankind, even after nature has freed them from alien guidance, gladly remain immature. It is because of laziness and cowardice that it is so easy for others to usurp the role of guardians. It is so comfortable to be a minor!

Give a man everything he wants and at that moment everything is not everything

The busier we are, the more acutely we feel that we live, the more conscious we are of life.

Our knowledge springs from two fundamental sources of the mind; the first is the capacity of receiving representations (receptivity for impressions), the second is the power of knowing an object through these representations (spontaneity [in the production] of concepts).

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.

Nature does nothing in vain, and in the use of means to her goals she is not prodigal.