Rene Descartes Quotes
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Desire awakens only to things that are thought possible.
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Sensations are nothing but confused modes of thinking.
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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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He who hid well, lived well.
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De omnibus dubitandum.
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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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Everything is self-evident.
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He lives well who is well hidden.
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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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Wonder is the first of all the passions.
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How do we know that anything really exists, that anything is really the way it seems ot us through our senses?
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I experienced in myself a certain capacity for judging which I have doubtless received from God, like all the other things that I possess; and as He could not desire to deceive me, it is clear that He has not given me a faculty that will lead me to err if I use it aright.
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Intuition is the undoubting conception of a pure and attentive mind, which arises from the light of reason alone, and is more certain than deduction.
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Few look for truth; many prowl about for a reputation of profundity by arrogantly challenging whichever arguments are the best.
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The only secure knowledge is that I exist.
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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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Divide each difficulty at hand into as many pieces as possible and as could be required to better solve them.
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Science is practical philosophy.
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Although my knowledge grows more and more, nevertheless I do not for that reason believe that it can ever be actually infinite, since it can never reach a point so high that it will be unable to attain any greater increase.
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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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Hence reason also demands that, since our thoughts cannot all be true because we are not wholly perfect, what truth they do possess must inevitably be found in the thoughts we have when awake, rather than in our dreams.
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A state is better governed which has few laws, and those laws strictly observed.
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Thus each truth discovered was a rule available in the discovery of subsequent ones.
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We call infinite that thing whose limits we have not perceived, and so by that word we do not signify what we understand about a thing, but rather what we do not understand.