Rules for happiness: something to do, someone to love, something to hope for.
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) was a German philosopher from Königsberg, a city he almost never left. The Critique of Pure Reason redirected Western philosophy by asking not what the world is, but what can be known about it at all. His categorical imperative remains a starting point in debates about ethics.
About this theme: Love
The Greeks had several words for what we cover with one: eros for desire, philia for the affection between friends, storge for family attachment, agape for the kind that asks nothing back. Translate all of that into a single word and the distinctions vanish — yet the distinctions are what most quotes about love are actually about.
More by Immanuel Kant
More on Love
- No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.— Charles Dickens
- A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.— Elbert Hubbard
- The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched — they must be felt with the heart.— Helen Keller
- One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: that word is love.— Sophocles
- Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.— Mother Teresa