Rene Descartes Quotes
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Variant: When it is not in our power to follow what is true, we ought to follow what is most probable.
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For to be possessed of a vigorous mind is not enough; the prime requisite is rightly to apply it.
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In philosophy, when we make use of false principles, we depart the farther from the knowledge of truth and wisdom exactly in proportion to the care with which we cultivate them, and apply ourselves to the deduction of diverse consequences from them, thinking that we are philosophizing well, while we are only departing the farther from the truth; from which it must be inferred that they who have learned the least of all that has been hitherto distinguished by the name of philosophy are the most fitted for the apprehension of truth.
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With me, everything turns into mathematics.
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Everything is self-evident.
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The nature of matter, or body considered in general, consists not in its being something which is hard or heavy or coloured, or which affects the senses in any way, but simply in its being something which is extended in length, breadth and depth.
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When writing about transcendental issues, be transcendentally clear.
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In order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn, than to contemplate.
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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.
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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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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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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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Just as we believe by faith that the greatest happiness of the next life consists simply in the contemplation of this divine majesty, likewise we experience that we derive the greatest joy of which we are capable in this life from the same contemplation, even though it is much less perfect.
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Everybody thinks himself so well supplied with common sense that even those most difficult to please. . . never desire more of it than they already have.
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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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Give me extension and motion and I will construct the universe.
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Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the self-same well from which your laughter rises was often-times filled with your tears.
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Omnia apud me mathematica fiunt.
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The rainbow is such a remarkable phenomenon of nature, and its cause has been so meticulously sought after by inquiring minds throughout the ages, that I could not choose a more appropriate subject for demonstrating how, with the method I am using, we can arrive at knowledge not possessed at all by those whose writings are available to us.
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De omnibus dubitandum.
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An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why must the pessimist always run to blow it out?
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Wonder is the first of all the passions.
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Instead I ought to be grateful to Him who never owed me anything for having been so generous to me, rather than think that He deprived me of those things or has taken away from me whatever He did not give me.
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I know that I exist; the question is, What is this 'I' that 'I' know.