Rene Descartes Quotes & Rene Descartes Sayings

"It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well." Rene Descartes Remarks Cogito, ergo, sum. (I think; therefore I am.) Rene Descartes Dubito ergo cogito; cogito ergo sum.(I doubt, therefore I think; I think therefore I am) Rene Descartes Sayings Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems. Rene Descartes Popular Quotes Each problem that I solved became a rule, which served afterwards to solve other problems. Rene Descartes Everything is self-evident. Rene Descartes Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power. Rene Descartes Adages Good sense is of all things in the world the most equally distributed, for everybody thinks he is so well supplied with it, that even those most difficult to please in all other matters never desire more of it than they already possess. Rene Descartes Sayings I am a thing that thinks, that is to say, a thing that doubts, affrims, denies, understands a few things, is ignorant of many things, wills, refrains from willing, and also imagines and senses. Rene Descartes Adages I am accustomed to sleep and in my dreams to imagine the same things that lunatics imagine when awake. Rene Descartes Quotes I concluded that I might take as a general rule the principle that all things which we very clearly and obviously conceive are true: only observing, however, that there is some difficulty in rightly determining the objects which we distinctly conceive. Rene Descartes 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. Rene Descartes I think; therefore I am. Rene Descartes Quotes If I found any new truths in the sciences, I can say that they follow from, or depend on, five or six principal problems which I succeeded in solving and which I regard as so many battles where the fortunes of war were on my side. Rene Descartes 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. Rene Descartes Illusory joy is often worth more than genuine sorrow. Rene Descartes In order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn, than to contemplate Rene Descartes Quotes It is easy to hate and it is difficult to love. This is how the whole scheme of things works. All good things are difficult to achieve; and bad things are very easy to get. Rene Descartes It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well. Rene Descartes Popular Quotes Let us suppose, then, that we are dreaming, and that all these particulars--namely, the opening of the eyes, the motion of the head, the forth- putting of the hands--are merely illusions; and even that we really possess neither an entire body nor hands such as we see. Nevertheless it must be admitted at least that the objects which appear to us in sleep are, as it were, painted representations which could not have been formed unless in the likeness of realities; and, therefore, that those general objects, at all events, namely, eyes, a head, hands, and an entire body, are not simply imaginary, but really existent. For, in truth, painters themselves, even when they study to represent sirens and satyrs by forms the most fantastic and extraordinary, cannot bestow upon them natures absolutely new, but can only make a certain medley of the members of different animals; or if they chance to imagine something so novel that nothing at all similar has ever been seen before, and such as is, therefore, purely fictitious and absolutely false, it is at least certain that the colors of which this is composed are real. And on the same principle, although these general objects, viz. [a body], eyes, a head, hands, and the like, be imaginary, we are nevertheless absolutely necessitated to admit the reality at least of some other objects still more simple and universal than these, of which, just as of certain real colors, all those images of things, whether true and real, or false and fantastic, that are found in our consciousness (cogitatio), are formed. Rene Descartes Quotes Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense - no one needs more of it than one already has! Rene Descartes Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has Rene Descartes Perfect numbers like perfect men are very rare. Rene Descartes Adages The first precept was never to accept a thing as true until I knew it as such without a single doubt. Rene Descartes Sayings The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues. Rene Descartes The only secure knowledge is that I exist. Rene Descartes Sayings 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. Rene Descartes Quotes The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries. Rene Descartes The senses deceive from time to time, and it is prudent never to trust wholly those who have deceived us even once Rene Descartes Adages The two operations of our understanding, intuition and deduction, on which alone we have said we must rely in the acquisition of knowledge. Rene Descartes There may indeed be those who would prefer to deny the existence of a God so powerful, rather than believe that all other things are uncertain. But let us not oppose them for the present, and grant that all that is here said of a God is a fable; nevertheless in whatever way they suppose that I have arrived at the state of being that I have reached -- whether they attribute it to fate or to accident, or make out that it is by a continual succession of antecedents, or by some other method -- since to err and deceive oneself is a defect, it is clear that the greater will be the probability of my being so imperfect as to deceive myself ever, as is the Author to whom they assign my origin the less powerful. To these reasons I have certainly nothing to reply, but at the end I feel constrained to confess that there is nothing in all that I formerly believed to be true, of which I cannot in some measure doubt, and that not merely through want of thought or through levity, but for reasons which are very powerful and maturely considered; so that henceforth I ought not the less carefully to refrain from giving credence to these opinions than to that which is manifestly false, if I desire to arrive at any certainty [in the sciences]. Rene Descartes Popular Quotes Thinking is another attribute of the soul; and here I discover what properly belongs to myself. This alone is inseparable from me. I am -- I exist: this is certain; but how often? As often as I think; for perhaps it would even happen, if I should wholly cease to think, that I should at the same time altogether cease to be. I now admit nothing that is not necessarily true: I am therefore, precisely speaking, only a thinking thing, that is, a mind, understanding, or reason, -- terms whose signification was before unknown to me. I am, however, a real thing, and really existent; but what thing? The answer was, a thinking thing. The question now arises, am I aught besides? I will stimulate my imagination with a view to discover whether I am not still something more than a thinking being. Now it is plain I am not the assemblage of members called the human body; I am not a thin and penetrating air diffused through all these members, or wind, or flame, or vapour, or breath, or any of all the things I can imagine; for I supposed that all these were not, and, without changing the supposition, I find that I still feel assured of my existence. Rene Descartes Travelling is almost like talking with those of other centuries. Rene Descartes Adages When I consider this carefully, I find not a single property which with certainty separates the waking state from the dream. How can you be certain that your whole life is not a dream? Rene Descartes Quotations When writing about transcendental issues, be transcendentally clear. Rene Descartes Whenever anyone has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that the offense cannot reach it Rene Descartes Adages You just keep pushing. You just keep pushing. I made every mistake that could be made. But I just kept pushing. Rene Descartes Remarks Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the self-same well from which your laughter rises was often-times filled with your tears. Rene Descartes Quotations