René Descartes
Quotes from René Descartes
"I think; therefore I am."
905
"The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest men of past centuries."
906
"If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things."
907
"I suppose therefore that all things I see are illusions; I believe that nothing has ever existed of everything my lying memory tells me. I think I have no senses. I believe that body, shape, extension, motion, location are functions. What is there then that can be taken as true? Perhaps only this one thing, that nothing at all is certain."
908
"Conquer yourself rather than the world."
909
"Doubt is the origin of wisdom."
910
"Common sense is the most widely shared commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it."
911
"Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power."
912
"It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well."
913
"To know what people really think, pay attention to what they do, rather than what they say."
914
"And thus, the actions of life often not allowing any delay, it is a truth very certain that, when it is not in our power to determine the most true opinions we ought to follow the most probable."
915
"The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues."
916
"I desire to live in peace and to continue the life I have begun under the motto 'to live well you must live unseen."
917
"It is only prudent never to place complete confidence in that by which we have even once been deceived."
918
"You just keep pushing. You just keep pushing. I made every mistake that could be made. But I just kept pushing."
919
"To live without philosophizing is in truth the same as keeping the eyes closed without attempting to open them."
920
"There is nothing more ancient than the truth."
921
"Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it."
922
"In order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn than to contemplate."
923
"For I found myself embarrassed with so many doubts and errors that it seemed to me that the effort to instruct myself had no effect other than the increasing discovery of my own ignorance."
924
"He who hid well, lived well."
925
"Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems."
926
"At last I will devote myself sincerely and without reservation to the general demolition of my opinions."
927
"Let whoever can do so deceive me, he will never bring it about that I am nothing, so long as I continue to think I am something."
928
"...it is a mark of prudence never to place our complete trust in those who have deceived us even once."
929
"Because reason...is the only thing that makes us men, and distinguishes us from the beasts, I would prefer to believe that it exists, in its entirety, in each of us..."
930
"The reading of all good books is indeed like a conversation with the noblest men of past centuries who were the authors of them, nay a carefully studied conversation, in which they reveal to us none but the best of their thoughts."
931
"Some years ago I was struck by the large number of falsehoods that I had accepted as true in my childhood, and by the highly doubtful nature of the whole edifice that I had subsequently based on them. I realized that it was necessary, once in the course of my life, to demolish everything completely and start again right from the foundations if I wanted to establish anything at all in the sciences that was stable and likely to last."
932
"Good sense is the most equitably distributed of all things because no matter how much or little a person has, everyone feels so abundantly provided with good sense that he feels no desire for more than he already possesses."
933
"But I cannot forget that, at other times I have been deceived in sleep by similar illusions; and, attentively considering those cases, I perceive so clearly that there exist no certain marks by which the state of waking can ever be distinguished from sleep, that I feel greatly astonished; and in amazement I almost persuade myself that I am now dreaming."
934
"So blind is the curiosity by which mortals are possessed, that they often conduct their minds along unexplored routes, having no reason to hope for success, but merely being willing to risk the experiment of finding whether the truth they seek lies there."
935
"I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am."
936
"It is best not to go on for great quest for truth , it will only make you miserable."
937
"But what then am I? A thing that thinks. What is that? A thing that doubts, understand, affirms, denies, wills, refuses, and that also imagines and senses."
938
"Whatever I have up till now accepted as most true and assured I have gotten either from the senses or through the senses. But from time to time I have found that the senses deceive, and it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once."
939