As nature has uncovered from under this hard shell the seed for which she most tenderly cares - the propensity and vocation to free thinking - this gradually works back upon the character of the people, who thereby gradually become capable of managing freedom; finally, it affects the principles of government, which finds it to its advantage to treat men, who are now more than machines, in accordance with their dignity.

It must be freely admitted that there is a sort of circle here from which it seems impossible to escape. In the order of efficient causes we assume ourselves free, in order that in the order of ends we may conceive ourselves as subject to these laws because we have attributed to ourselves freedom of will; for freedom and self-legislation of will are both autonomy...

...[F]reedom... is a property of all rational beings.

Freedom is alone the unoriginated birthright of man, and belongs to him by force of his humanity; and is independent of the will and co-action of every other…

God, freedom, and immortality are untenable in the light of pure reason.

Act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.