..We find that the more a cultivated reason applies itself with deliberate purpose to the enjoyment of life and happiness, so much the more does the man fail of true satisfaction.. even from the sciences.. they find that they have, in fact, only brought more trouble on their shoulders rather than gained in happiness; and they end by envying rather than despising the more common stamp of men who keep closer to the guidance of mere instinct, and do not allow their reason much influence on their conduct.. [T]here lies at the root of these judgments the idea that our existence has a different and far nobler end, for which, and not for happiness, reason is properly intended.. .Immanuel Kant
About This Quote
Francis Bacon is talking about the way in which the mind is designed to function. If you are looking for happiness, reason will not be able to provide it. If you are looking for something higher than happiness, reason will not be able to provide it. If you are looking for something nobler than happiness, reason will not be able to provide it. Reason is an instrument designed to help us find the truth and improve our lives, but it cannot provide us with that which lies beyond truth or that which lies beyond improvement of life.
Some Similar Quotes
- Some people don't understand the promises they're making when they make them, " I said." Right, of course. But you keep the promise anyway. That's what love is. Love is keeping the promise anyway.
- I think if I've learned anything about friendship, it's to hang in, stay connected, fight for them, and let them fight for you. Don't walk away, don't be distracted, don't be too busy or tired, don't take them for granted. Friends are part of the...
- And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
- Sometimes God allows what he hates to accomplish what he loves.
- Believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.
More Quotes By Immanuel Kant
- One who makes himself a worm cannot complain afterwards if people step on him.
- Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.
- Enlightenment is man's release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man's inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. Self-incurred is this tutelage when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it...
- Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.
- An age cannot bind itself and ordain to put the succeeding one into such a condition that it cannot extend its (at best very occasional) knowledge , purify itself of errors, and progress in general enlightenment. That would be a crime against human nature, the...