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About this quote

What does it mean?
Always see people as goals in themselves, not tools for your use. Do not use people to achieve your ends.
In plain terms
Treat people as people, not tools.
What can you take from it?
Never use people as mere means.

Where it applies

  • business
  • relationships
  • policy

Putting it to work

  • respect individual dignity
  • check your motives

Questions to consider

  • When do we use people?
  • How to respect others?

Another view

Sometimes using people is unavoidable in life.

More from Immanuel Kant

  1. All thought must, directly or indirectly, by way of certain characters, relate ultimately to intuitions, and therefore, with us, to sensibility, because in no …

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  2. Apart from moral conduct, all that man thinks himself able to do in order to become acceptable to God is mere superstition and religious folly.

    Permalink to quote #41
  3. All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.

    Permalink to quote #38

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