Physicians think they do a lot for a patient when they give his disease a name.
Immanuel KantRead
The question is not so much whether there is life on Mars as whether it will continue to be possible to live on Earth
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the importance of Earth's sustainability over the curiosity of extraterrestrial life.
Immanuel Kant highlights a profound philosophical concern regarding humanity's existence on Earth while questioning our priorities. Rather than focusing solely on the search for life beyond our planet, he urges us to consider the pressing need for sustainable living conditions on our own planet, suggesting that our future depends on how we care for and maintain the Earth.
Themes
EarthSustainabilityLifeExistencePhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
During a climate change conference, this quote could be used to highlight the urgency of environmental preservation.
More from Immanuel Kant
All quotes βThe 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.
Immanuel KantRead
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.
Immanuel KantRead
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.
Immanuel KantRead
. . . 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. . . .
Immanuel KantRead
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.
Immanuel KantRead
Similar quotes
Ethical axioms are found and tested not very differently from the axioms of science. Truth is what stands the test of experience.
Albert EinsteinRead
Our faith in others betrays that we would rather have faith in ourselves. Our longing for a friend is our betrayer. And often with our love we want merely to overcome envy. And often we attack and make ourselves enemies, to conceal that we are vulnerable.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
If the black box flight recorder is never damaged during a plane crash, why isnβt the whole airplane made out of that stuff?
George CarlinRead
What must never be lost sight of is that a public functionary, in his capacity as functionary, produces absolutely nothing; that, on the contrary, he exists only on the products of the industrious class; and that he can consume nothing that has not been taken from the producers.
Charles DunoyerRead
I think that ideas exist outside of ourselves. I think somewhere, we're all connected off in some very abstract land. But somewhere between there and here ideas exist.
David LynchRead
Men are rather reasoning than reasonable animals for the most part governed by the impulse of passion. This is a truth well understood by our adversaries who have practised upon it with no small benefit to their cause. For at the very moment they are eulogizing the reason of men & professing to appeal only to that faculty, they are courting the strongest & most active passion of the human heart - VANITY!
Alexander HamiltonRead