Rene Descartes Quotes
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My third maxim was to try always to conquer myself rather than fortune, and to change my desires rather than the order of the world, and generally to accustom myself to believing that there is nothing entirely in our power except our thoughts, so that after we have done our best regarding things external to us, everything in which we do not succeed is for us absolutely impossible.
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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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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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When writing about transcendental issues, be transcendentally clear.
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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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Everything is self-evident.
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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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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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With me, everything turns into mathematics.
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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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The entire method consists in the order and arrangement of the things to which the mind's eye must turn so that we can discover some truth.
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I know that I exist; the question is, What is this 'I' that 'I' know.
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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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Bad books engender bad habits, but bad habits engender good books.
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Give me extension and motion and I will construct the universe.
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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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For to be possessed of a vigorous mind is not enough; the prime requisite is rightly to apply it.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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And thereby make ourselves, as it were, the lords and masters of nature.