[S]uppose the mind of [a] friend of humanity were clouded over with his own grief, extinguishing all sympathetic participation in the fate of others; he still has the resources to be beneficent to those suffering distress, but the distress of others does not touch him because he is sufficiently busy with his own; and now, where no inclination any longer stimulates him to it, he tears himself out of his deadly insensibility and does the action without any inclination, solely from duty.

Every man is to be respected as an absolute end in himself; and it is a crime against the dignity that belongs to him as a human being, to use him as a mere means for some external purpose.

Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.

The existence of the Bible is the greatest blessing which humanity ever experienced.

It is through good education that all the good in the world arises.

Procrastination is hardly more evil than grasping impatience.

Morality is not properly the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.