Physicians think they do a lot for a patient when they give his disease a name.
Immanuel KantRead
But only he who, himself enlightened, is not afraid of shadows.
Interpretation
True enlightenment allows one to confront fears and uncertainties without fear.
This quote by Immanuel Kant suggests that a truly enlightened individual possesses the bravery to face the unknown and the darkness represented by shadows. It implies that knowledge and understanding liberate one from fear, encouraging a more profound engagement with life's complexities and the challenges that lie ahead.
In practice
During a motivational speech about facing fears.
Physicians think they do a lot for a patient when they give his disease a name.
The inscrutable wisdom through which we exist is not less worthy of veneration in respect to what it denies us than in respect to what it has granted.
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.
I shall never forget my mother, for it was she who planted and nurtured the first seeds of good within me. She opened my heart to the lasting impressions of nature; she awakened my understanding and extended my horizon and her percepts exerted an everlasting influence upon the course of my life.
. . . as to moral feeling, this supposed special sense, the appeal to it is indeed superficial when those who cannot think believe that feeling will help them out, even in what concerns general laws: and besides, feelings which naturally differ infinitely in degree cannot furnish a uniform standard of good and evil, nor has any one a right to form judgments for others by his own feelings. . . .
Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.
How great, my friends, is the virtue of living upon a little!
There is a false modesty, which is vanity; a false glory, which is levity; a false grandeur, which is meanness; a false virtue, which is hypocrisy, and a false wisdom, which is prudery.
It's the questions we can't answer that teach us the most. They teach us how to think.
There is no short-cut no patent tram-road, to wisdom. After all the centuries of invention, the soul's path lies through the thorny wilderness which must still be trodden in solitude, with bleeding feet, with sobs for help, as it was trodden by them of old time.
It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.
Time is making fools of us again.
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