Man (n.) is the only example of a rational being anyone can cite, even as philosophy separates rational being from human being.
Man (n.) as man is only the appearance of himself; only as an intelligence is he his proper self.
Man (n.) adapts nature to his whims — feathers for his clothes, coloured earth for his face — whims for which nature never predestined him.
Man (n.) is what grass is for and cattle are for — but why man should exist at all, nothing in nature tells us.
Man (n.) is the ultimate end of creation on earth because he alone can form a concept of ends and make a system of ends out of a heap of purposive things.
Man (n.) exists, on Linnaeus's reversed chain, to thin out the carnivores that thin out the herbivores that thin out the plants — an end in one light, a means in another.
Man (n.) is so made that he cannot rest or be satisfied in any possession or enjoyment whatever.
Man (n.) adds to plague, famine and flood misfortunes of his own invention — oppression, war — and does all he can to destroy his own race.
Man (n.) is titular lord of nature — but only on condition that he can give himself an end independent of nature.
Man (n.) taken as noumenon cannot be asked what he exists for: his existence carries the highest end in itself.
Man (n.) is crooked material: out of it nothing can be hammered quite straight.