Q0256

“The sublime is what is absolutely great.” — Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgment §25)

Verified English quotation. Primary source: Critique of Judgment §25. Theme: beauty.

English

The sublime is what is absolutely great.
Thinker Immanuel Kant
School German Idealism
Source Critique of Judgment §25
Theme Beauty
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source and attribution

The archive attributes this English wording to Critique of Judgment §25 and files it under German Idealism. That locator distinguishes the passage from loose internet attributions: readers can return to the named work or section to check translation, surrounding argument, and edition-specific wording.

About Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) spent nearly his entire life in Königsberg, rising from tutor to professor at the university there. After early scientific and metaphysical essays, the Critique of Pure Reason (1781/1787) launched his “critical” philosophy.

How to read this passage

Aesthetics asks what beauty is, how taste is educated, and how art discloses truth or shapes moral perception. This passage enters that discussion through beauty.

Concepts in this quote

Beauty
Beauty raises questions about judgment, form, pleasure, and whether aesthetic value is subjective or shares standards.

How to cite this quotation

APA: Immanuel Kant. (n.d.). The sublime is what is absolutely great. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0256

MLA: Immanuel Kant. “The sublime is what is absolutely great..” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0256.

Chicago: Immanuel Kant. “The sublime is what is absolutely great..” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0256.

Frequently asked questions

What is the source of the quotation “The sublime is what is absolutely great.”?

The passage is attributed to Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment §25. The archive attributes this English wording to Critique of Judgment §25 and files it under German Idealism. That locator distinguishes the passage from loose internet attributions: readers can return to the named work or section to check translation, surrounding argument, and edition-specific wording.

What does Immanuel Kant mean by beauty?

Aesthetics asks what beauty is, how taste is educated, and how art discloses truth or shapes moral perception. This passage enters that discussion through beauty.

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 beauty

  1. It is through wonder that people both now begin and first began to philosophize.
  2. A person's character is their destiny.
  3. What is opposed brings together; from what differs comes the finest harmony.
  4. Death is nothing to us: for what has been dissolved has no sensation, and what has no sensation is nothing to us.
  5. Pleasure is the beginning and end of the happy life — not the pleasures of profligates, but freedom from pain in the body and from disturbance in the soul.

Browse the beauty theme