“Sapere Aude! Have the courage to use your own intelligence!”
What is Enlightenment? (1784)
Variant: Have the courage to use your own reason- That is the motto of enlightenment.
Source: Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
Context: Enlightenment is man’s leaving his self-caused immaturity. Immaturity is the incapacity to use one's intelligence without the guidance of another. Such immaturity is self-caused if it is not caused by lack of intelligence, but by lack of determination and courage to use one's intelligence without being guided by another. Sapere Aude! Have the courage to use your own intelligence! is therefore the motto of the enlightenment.
Original
Sapere Aude! Habe Mut, dich deines eigenen Verstandes zu bedienen!
Eingangsmotto der Schrift "Was ist Aufklärung" (1784)
Sonstige
Variant: Habe den Mut, dich deines eigenen Verstandes zu bedienen.
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Immanuel Kant 200
German philosopher 1724–1804Related quotes
From an article on Israel Hayom http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=23811
“People have only as much liberty as they have the intelligence to want and the courage to take.”
Source: The Anarchist Cookbook (1971), Chapter Three: "Natural, Nonlethal, and Lethal Weapons", p. 92.
Context: It is easy to pick up a weapon and in a short while become a reasonably good shot. This makes it extremely easy for the virtually untrained individual to come to believe that he is an expert in ballistics. False confidence is as great a fault as no confidence at all. In the training of any freedom fighters there must be a merger of fearlessness and intelligent caution. A dead man has no use for confidence or courage.
Part III: Nice Meeting You, and Goodbye
The Courage to Stand Alone (2001)
Context: You can have the courage to climb the mountain, swim the lakes, go on a raft to the other side of the Atlantic or Pacific. That any fool can do, but the courage to be on your own, to stand on your two solid feet, is something which cannot be given by somebody. You cannot free yourself of that burden by trying to develop that courage. If you are freed from the entire burden of the entire past of mankind, then what is left there is the courage.
“Clear thinking requires courage rather than intelligence.”