Date: 1785

"Even if, by a special disfavor of fortune or by the niggardly provision of a stepmotherly nature, this will should wholly lack the capacity to carry out its purpose--if with its greatest efforts it should yet achieve nothing and only the good will were left (not, of course, as a mere wish but as...

— Kant, Immanuel (1724-1804)

Date: 1785

"One cannot give too many or too frequent warnings against this laxity, or even mean cast of mind, which seeks its principle among empirical motives and laws; for,human reason in its weariness gladly rests on this pillow and in a dream of sweet illusions (which allow it to embrace a cloud instead...

— Kant, Immanuel (1724-1804)

Date: 1797-8, 1799

"Conscience is practical reason holding the human being's duty before him for his acquittal or condemnation in every case that comes under a law."

— Kant, Immanuel (1724-1804)

Date: 1797-8, 1799

"Consciousness of an inner court in the human being ('before which his thoughts accuse or excuse one another') is conscience."

— Kant, Immanuel (1724-1804)

Date: 1800

"Know, that the human being's thoughts and deeds / Are not like ocean billows, blindly moved."

— Schiller, Friedrich (1759-1805)

Date: 1800

"The inner world, his microcosmus, is / The deep shaft, out of which they spring eternally."

— Schiller, Friedrich (1759-1805)

Date: 1800

"They grow by certain laws, like the tree's fruit-- / No juggling chance can metamorphose them. / Have I the human kernel first examined? / Then I know, too, the future will and action."

— Schiller, Friedrich (1759-1805)