Top 160 Quotes & Sayings by Rene Descartes
Explore popular quotes and sayings by a French mathematician Rene Descartes.
Last updated on December 23, 2024.
The first precept was never to accept a thing as true until I knew it as such without a single doubt.
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.
An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why must the pessimist always run to blow it out?
Illusory joy is often worth more than genuine sorrow.
Everything is self-evident.
It is only prudent never to place complete confidence in that by which we have even once been deceived.
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.
The two operations of our understanding, intuition and deduction, on which alone we have said we must rely in the acquisition of knowledge.
I am indeed amazed when I consider how weak my mind is and how prone to error.
Each problem that I solved became a rule, which served afterwards to solve other problems.
The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues.
Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has.
I think; therefore I am.
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.
In order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn, than to contemplate.
Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it.
One cannot conceive anything so strange and so implausible that it has not already been said by one philosopher or another.
Whenever anyone has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that the offense cannot reach it.
It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well.
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.
A state is better governed which has few laws, and those laws strictly observed.
When it is not in our power to follow what is true, we ought to follow what is most probable.
I am accustomed to sleep and in my dreams to imagine the same things that lunatics imagine when awake.
Perfect numbers like perfect men are very rare.
There is nothing so strange and so unbelievable that it has not been said by one philosopher or another.
The senses deceive from time to time, and it is prudent never to trust wholly those who have deceived us even once.
Travelling is almost like talking with those of other centuries.
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the self-same well from which your laughter rises was often-times filled with your tears.
Truths are more likely to be discovered by one man than by a nation
All is to be doubted.
God alone is the author of all the motions in the world.
The only thing we have power over in the universe is our own thoughts.
Common sense is the most widely shared commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it.
How can you be certain that your whole life is not a dream?
I know that I exist; the question is, What is this 'I' that 'I' know.
Science is practical philosophy.
You just keep pushing. You just keep pushing. I made every mistake that could be made. But I just kept pushing.
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.
The only thing that I know, is that I know nothing
Conquer yourself rather than the world.
Omnia apud me mathematica fiunt.
We do not describe the world we see, we see the world we can describe.
Desire awakens only to things that are thought possible.
He who hid well, lived well.
The chief cause of human errors is to be found in the prejudices picked up in childhood.
Wonder is the first of all the passions.
I have concluded the evident existence of God, and that my existence depends entirely on God in all the moments of my life, that I do not think that the human spirit may know anything with greater evidence and certitude.
Reason is nothing without imagination.
Mathematics is a more powerful instrument of knowledge than any other that has been bequeathed to us by human agency.
It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well.
By 'God', I understand, a substance which is infinite, independent, supremely intelligent, supremely powerful, and which created both myself and everything else [...] that exists. All these attributes are such that, the more carefully I concentrate on them, the less possible it seems that they could have originated from me alone. So, from what has been said it must be concluded that God necessarily exists.
Doubt is the origin of wisdom
There is nothing more ancient than the truth.
He lives well who is well hidden.
To live without philosophizing is in truth the same as keeping the eyes closed without attempting to open them.
It is possible that I am dreaming right now and that all of my perceptions are false.
De omnibus dubitandum
Nothing comes out of nothing.
Situations in life often permit no delay; and when we cannot determine the course which is certainly best, we must follow the one which is probably the best. This frame of mind freed me also from the repentance and remorse commonly felt by those vacillating individuals who are always seeking as worthwhile things which they later judge to be bad.
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