Rene Descartes Quotes (46 Quotes)


    The principal effect of the passions is that they incite and persuade the mind to will the events for which they prepared the body.

    There is nothing so strange and so unbelievable that it has not been said by one philosopher or another.

    If you would be a real seeker after truth, you must at least once in your life doubt, as far as possible, all things.

    Illusory joy is often worth more than genuine sorrow.

    It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well.


    It is only prudent never to place complete confidence in that by which we have even once been deceived.

    I am accustomed to sleep and in my dreams to imagine the same things that lunatics imagine when awake.

    When it is not in our power to follow what is true, we ought to follow what is most probable.

    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.

    Good sense is of all things in the world the most equally distributed, for everybody thinks he is so well supplied with it, that even those most difficult to please in all other matters never desire more of it than they already possess.

    Dubito ergo cogito cogito ergo sum.(I doubt, therefore I think I think therefore I am)

    Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it.

    When writing about transcendental issues, be transcendentally clear.

    At the time, my grandparents told my mom, Lordy, what is Shannen doing Now I've calmed down. on her reputation for bad behavior.

    You just keep pushing. You just keep pushing. I made every mistake that could be made. But I just kept pushing.

    Of all things, good sense is the most fairly distributed everyone thinks he is so well supplied with it that even those who are the hardest to satisfy in every other respect never desire more of it than they already have.

    If we possessed a thorough knowledge of all the parts of the seed of any animal (e.g. man), we could from that alone, be reasons entirely mathematical and certain, deduce the whole conformation and figure of each of its members, and, conversely if we knew several peculiarities of this conformation, we would from those deduce the nature of its seed.

    A state is better governed which has few laws, and those laws strictly observed.

    In order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn, than to contemplate.

    An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why must the pessimist always run to blow it out?

    Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has.

    Whenever anyone has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that the offense cannot reach it.

    Common sense is the most widely shared commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it.

    These long chains of perfectly simple and easy reasonings by means of which geometers are accustomed to carry out their most difficult demonstrations had led me to fancy that everything that can fall under human knowledge forms a similar sequence and that so long as we avoid accepting as true what is not so, and always preserve the right order of deduction of one thing from another, there can be nothing too remote to be reached in the end, or to well hidden to be discovered.

    Travelling is almost like talking with those of other centuries.

    The two operations of our understanding, intuition and deduction, on which alone we have said we must rely in the acquisition of knowledge.

    With me everything turns into mathematics. omnia apud me mathematica fiunt.

    Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power.



    The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries.


    I thought the following four rules would be enough, provided that I made a firm and constant resolution not to fail even once in the observance of them. The first was never to accept anything as true if I had not evident knowledge of its being so that.

    The first precept was never to accept a thing as true until I knew it as such without a single doubt.

    One cannot conceive anything so strange and so implausible that it has not already been said by one philosopher or another.

    I am indeed amazed when I consider how weak my mind is and how prone to error.


    I hope that posterity will judge me kindly, not only as to the things which I have explained, but also to those which I have intentionally omitted so as to leave to others the pleasure of discovery.

    If I found any new truths in the sciences, I can say that they follow from, or depend on, five or six principal problems which I succeeded in solving and which I regard as so many battles where the fortunes of war were on my side.

    The greatest minds, as they are capable of the highest excellencies, are open likewise to the greatest aberrations

    I concluded that I might take as a general rule the principle that all things which we very clearly and obviously conceive are true only observing, however, that there is some difficulty in rightly determining the objects which we distinctly conceive.

    The senses deceive from time to time, and it is prudent never to trust wholly those who have deceived us even once.

    Traveling is almost like talking with men of other centuries.

    The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues.

    Common sense is the most fairly distributed thing in the world, for each one thinks he is so well-endowed with it that even those who are hardest to satisfy in all other matters are not in the habit of desiring more of it than they already have.

    Each problem that I solved became a rule, which served afterwards to solve other problems.


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