It is not God’s will merely that we should be happy, but that we should make ourselves happy.

Meaning of the quote

Kant is saying that God doesn't just want us to be happy, but that we should work to make ourselves happy. It's not enough to wait for happiness to come to us - we need to take action and find ways to be happy on our own. Happiness is something we have to create for ourselves, not something that will just happen if we sit back and hope for the best.

About Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant was a prominent German philosopher who made significant contributions to various fields, including epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics. His comprehensive and systematic works have greatly influenced modern Western philosophy, earning him the titles of “father of modern ethics,” “father of modern aesthetics,” and “father of modern philosophy.”

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More quotes from Immanuel Kant

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

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher (1724-1804) of the Enlightenment

All the interests of my reason, speculative as well as practical, combine in the three following questions: 1. What can I know? 2. What ought I to do? 3. What may I hope?

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher (1724-1804) of the Enlightenment

It is not God’s will merely that we should be happy, but that we should make ourselves happy.

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher (1724-1804) of the Enlightenment

Two things awe me most, the starry sky above me and the moral law within me.

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher (1724-1804) of the Enlightenment

Out of timber so crooked as that from which man is made nothing entirely straight can be carved.

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher (1724-1804) of the Enlightenment

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

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher (1724-1804) of the Enlightenment

Ingratitude is the essence of vileness.

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher (1724-1804) of the Enlightenment

But although all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it arises from experience.

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher (1724-1804) of the Enlightenment

Nothing is divine but what is agreeable to reason.

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher (1724-1804) of the Enlightenment

He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher (1724-1804) of the Enlightenment

To be is to do.

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher (1724-1804) of the Enlightenment

It is beyond a doubt that all our knowledge that begins with experience.

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher (1724-1804) of the Enlightenment

From such crooked wood as that which man is made of, nothing straight can be fashioned.

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher (1724-1804) of the Enlightenment

Religion is the recognition of all our duties as divine commands.

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher (1724-1804) of the Enlightenment

In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so.

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher (1724-1804) of the Enlightenment

May you live your life as if the maxim of your actions were to become universal law.

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher (1724-1804) of the Enlightenment

Immaturity is the incapacity to use one’s intelligence without the guidance of another.

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher (1724-1804) of the Enlightenment

All thought must, directly or indirectly, by way of certain characters, relate ultimately to intuitions, and therefore, with us, to sensibility, because in no other way can an object be given to us.

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher (1724-1804) of the Enlightenment

A categorical imperative would be one which represented an action as objectively necessary in itself, without reference to any other purpose.

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher (1724-1804) of the Enlightenment

Intuition and concepts constitute… the elements of all our knowledge, so that neither concepts without an intuition in some way corresponding to them, nor intuition without concepts, can yield knowledge.

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher (1724-1804) of the Enlightenment

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

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher (1724-1804) of the Enlightenment

Metaphysics is a dark ocean without shores or lighthouse, strewn with many a philosophic wreck.

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher (1724-1804) of the Enlightenment

It is not necessary that whilst I live I live happily; but it is necessary that so long as I live I should live honourably.

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher (1724-1804) of the Enlightenment

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

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher (1724-1804) of the Enlightenment

Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play.

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher (1724-1804) of the Enlightenment

I had therefore to remove knowledge, in order to make room for belief.

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher (1724-1804) of the Enlightenment

Even philosophers will praise war as ennobling mankind, forgetting the Greek who said: ‘War is bad in that it begets more evil than it kills.’

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher (1724-1804) of the Enlightenment

The only objects of practical reason are therefore those of good and evil. For by the former is meant an object necessarily desired according to a principle of reason; by the latter one necessarily shunned, also according to a principle of reason.

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher (1724-1804) of the Enlightenment

By a lie, a man… annihilates his dignity as a man.

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher (1724-1804) of the Enlightenment

If man makes himself a worm he must not complain when he is trodden on.

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher (1724-1804) of the Enlightenment

All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher (1724-1804) of the Enlightenment

Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination.

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher (1724-1804) of the Enlightenment

Seek not the favor of the multitude; it is seldom got by honest and lawful means. But seek the testimony of few; and number not voices, but weigh them.

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher (1724-1804) of the Enlightenment

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher (1724-1804) of the Enlightenment

Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher (1724-1804) of the Enlightenment

Live your life as though your every act were to become a universal law.

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher (1724-1804) of the Enlightenment

Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end.

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher (1724-1804) of the Enlightenment