Q0255

Immanuel Kant

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

Enlightenment is the human being's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity.
Thinker Immanuel Kant
School German Idealism
Source What is Enlightenment?
Theme Enlightenment
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with What is Enlightenment?, within the tradition of German Idealism. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of enlightenment, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Immanuel Kant's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Immanuel Kant. (n.d.). Enlightenment is the human being's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0255

MLA: Immanuel Kant. “Enlightenment is the human being's emergence from his….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0255.

Chicago: Immanuel Kant. “Enlightenment is the human being's emergence from his….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0255.

Same thinker

More from Immanuel Kant

  1. Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe…: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.
  2. Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.
  3. Dare to know! Have the courage to use your own understanding!
  4. Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never merely as a means.
  5. It is impossible to think of anything at all in the world, or indeed even beyond it, that could be considered good without limitation except a good will.

All quotations by Immanuel Kant

Same theme

More on enlightenment

  1. Dare to know! Have the courage to use your own understanding!
  2. Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark.
  3. When human life lay foully for all to see, crushed to the earth under heavy religion…
  4. Men must tolerate one another.
  5. If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.

Browse the enlightenment theme