Human beings are never to be treated as a means but always as ends.

When I could have used a wife, I could not support one; and when I could support one, I no longer needed any

Act so that the maxim of your act could be made the principle of a universal law.

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.

Men will not understand ... that when they fulfil their duties to men, they fulfil thereby God's commandments; that they are consequently always in the service of God, as long as their actions are moral, and that it is absolutely impossible to serve God otherwise.

If we could see ourselves... as we really are, we should see ourselves in a world of spiritual natures, our community which neither began at birth nor will end with the death of the body.

One who makes himself a worm cannot complain afterwards if people step on him.