Rene Descartes Quotes
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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.
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It is possible that I am dreaming right now and that all of my perceptions are false.
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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.
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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.
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With me, everything turns into mathematics.
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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.
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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.
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The only thing we have power over in the universe is our own thoughts.
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The first precept was never to accept a thing as true until I knew it as such without a single doubt.
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The mind effortlessly and automatically takes in new ideas, which remain in limbo until verified or rejected by conscious, rational analysis.
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Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has.
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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.
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It is to the body alone that we should attribute everything that can be observed in us to oppose our reason.
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God alone is the author of all the motions in the world.
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There is a little gland in the brain in which the soul exercises its functions in a more particular way than in the other parts.
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As I considered the matter carefully it gradually came to light that all those matters only were referred to mathematics in which order and measurements are investigated, and that it makes no difference whether it be in numbers, figures, stars, sounds or any other object that the question of measurement arises. I saw consequently that there must be some general science to explain that element as a whole which gives rise to problems about order and measurement, restricted as these are to no special subject matter. This, I perceived was called 'universal mathematics'.
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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 th eincreasing discovery of my own ignorance.
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When writing about transcendental issues, be transcendentally clear.
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If I simply refrain from making a judgment in cases where I do not perceive the truth with sufficient clarity and distinctness, then it is clear that I am behaving correctly and avoiding error.
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And thereby make ourselves, as it were, the lords and masters of nature.
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We never understand a thing so well,and make it our own, as when we have discovered it for ourselves.
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What then is the source of my errors? They are owing simply to the fact that, since the will extends further than the intellect, I do not contain the will within the same boundaries; rather, I also extend it to things I do not understand. Because the will is indifferent in regard to such matters, it easily turns away from the true and the good; and in this way I am deceived and I sin.
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Every man is indeed bound to do what he can to promote the good of others, and a man who is of no use to anyone is strictly worthless.
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Whenever anyone has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that the offense cannot reach it.