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.

Freedom in the practical sense is the independence of the power of choice from necessitation by impulses of sensibility

There is something splendid about innocence; but what is bad about it, in turn, is that it cannot protect itself very well and is easily seduced.

One cannot avoid a certain feeling of disgust, when one observes the actions of man displayed on the great stage of the world. Wisdom is manifested by individuals here and there; but the web of human history as a whole appears to be woven from folly and childish vanity, often, too, from puerile wickedness and love of destruction: with the result that at the end one is puzzled to know what idea to form of our species which prides itself so much on its advantages.

What can I know? What ought I to do? What may I hope?

Act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.

Imagination is a powerful agent for creating, as it were, a second nature out of the material supplied to it by actual nature.