Top 100 Rene Descartes Quotes
#1. So far, I have been a spectator in this theatre which is the world, but I am now about to mount the stage, and I come forward masked.
Rene Descartes
#2. The will determines itself; it should not be described as blind, any more than vision should be described as deaf.
Rene Descartes
#3. I had become aware, as early as my college days, that no opinion, however absurd and incredible can be imagined, that has not been held by one of the philosophers.
Rene Descartes
#4. You just keep pushing. You just keep pushing. I made every mistake that could be made. But I just kept pushing.
Rene Descartes
#5. It is possible that I am dreaming right now and that all of my perceptions are false.
Rene Descartes
#6. I am thing that thinks: that is, a things that doubts,affirms, denies, understands a few things, is ignorant of many things, is willing, is unwilling, and also which imagines and has sensory perceptions.
Rene Descartes
#7. 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.
Rene Descartes
#8. 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.
Rene Descartes
#11. At last I will devote myself sincerely and without reservation to the general demolition of my opinions.
Rene Descartes
#12. To know what people really think, pay attention to what they do, rather than what they say.
Rene Descartes
#13. The very desire to seek the truth often causes people, who do not know how it should be sought correctly, to make judgements about things that they do not perceive and in that way they make mistakes.
Rene Descartes
#14. The dreams we imagine when we are asleep should not in any way make us doubt the truth of the thoughts we have when we are awake.
Rene Descartes
#15. Because reason ... is the only thing that makes us men, and distinguishes us from the beasts, I would prefer to believe that it exists, in its entirety, in each of us ...
Rene Descartes
#16. And, in fine, of false sciences I thought I knew the worth sufficiently to escape being deceived by the professions of an alchemist, the predictions of an astrologer, the impostures of a magician, or by the artifices and boasting of any of those who profess to know things of which they are ignorant.
Rene Descartes
#17. 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.
Rene Descartes
#19. It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well.
Rene Descartes
#20. It is just as valuable to be censured by friends as it is splendid to be praised by enemies. We desire praise from those who do not know us, but from friends we want the truth.
Rene Descartes
#23. Those who move but very slowly, may advance much farther, if they always follow the right way; then those who run and straggle from it.
Rene Descartes
#24. To live without philosophizing is in truth the same as keeping the eyes closed without attempting to open them.
Rene Descartes
#26. I did not imitate the skeptics who doubt only for doubting's sake, and pretend to be always undecided; on the contrary, my whole intention was to arrive at a certainty, and to dig away the drift and the sand until I reached the rock or the clay beneath.
Rene Descartes
#27. Archimedes, that he might transport the entire globe ... demanded only a point that was firm and immovable; so also, I shall be entitled to entertain the highest expectations, if I am fortunate enough to discover only one thing that is certain and indubitable.
Rene Descartes
#28. For how do we know that the thoughts which occur in dreaming are false rather than those others which we experience when awake, since the former are often not less vivid and distinct than the latter?
Rene Descartes
#29. Moreover, I am aware that most of the irreligious deny the existence of God, and the distinctness of the human soul from the body, for no other reason than because these points, as they allege, have never as yet been demonstrated.
Rene Descartes
#31. It is only prudent never to place complete confidence in that by which we have even once been deceived.
Rene Descartes
#32. There is nothing so far removed from us to be beyond our reach, or so far hidden that we cannot discover it.
Rene Descartes
#33. 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
#34. And as it is the most generous souls who have most gratitude, it is those who have most pride, and who are most base and infirm, who most allow themselves to be carried away by anger and hatred.
Rene Descartes
#35. For each of us there is a set limit to our intellectual powers which we cannot pass.
Rene Descartes
#36. The first was never to accept anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such; that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitancy and prejudice, and to comprise nothing more in my judgment than what was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly as to exclude all ground of doubt.
Rene Descartes
#37. That the reading of good books, is like the conversation with the honestest persons of the past age, who were the Authors of them, and even a studyed conversation, wherein they discover to us the best only of their thoughts. That eloquence hath forces & beauties which are incomparable.
Rene Descartes
#38. Travelling is almost like talking with those of other centuries.
Rene Descartes
#40. I accept no principles of physics which are not also accepted in mathematics.
Rene Descartes
#41. Even those who have the weakest souls could acquire absolute mastery over all their passions if we employed sufficient ingenuity in training and guiding them.
Rene Descartes
#42. That the grace of fable stirs the mind" ... and ... "that the perusal of excellent books is, as it were, to interview with the noblest men of past ages
Rene Descartes
#43. 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.
Rene Descartes
#44. For 'tis not enough to have good faculties, but the principal is, to apply them well.
Rene Descartes
#45. 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.
Rene Descartes
#46. The thinking of the mind is twofold: understanding and willing.
Rene Descartes
#47. Thus each truth discovered was a rule available in the discovery of subsequent ones.
Rene Descartes
#48. Reading good books is like engaging in conversation with the most cultivated minds of past centuries who had composed them, or rather, taking part in a well-conducted dialogue in which such minds reveal to us only the best of their thoughts.
Rene Descartes
#49. Give me extension and motion and I will construct the universe.
Rene Descartes
#50. An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why must the pessimist always run to blow it out?
Rene Descartes
#51. It is enough that I can understand one thing, clearly and distinctly, without another in order to be certain that one thing is distinct from the other.
Rene Descartes
#52. Good sense is the most evenly distributed thing in the world; for everyone believes himself to be so well provided with it that even those who are the hardest to please in every other way do not usually want more of it than they already have.
Rene Descartes
#54. It cannot be denied that he has had many exceptional ideas, and that he is a highly intelligent man. For my part, however, I have always been taught to take a broad overview of things, in order to be able to deduce from them general rules, which might be applicable elsewhere.
Rene Descartes
#55. It appears to me that I have discovered many truths more useful and more important than all I had before learned, or even had expected to learn.
Rene Descartes
#56. We do not describe the world we see, we see the world we can describe.
Rene Descartes
#57. God alone is the author of all the motions in the world.
Rene Descartes
#59. The mind effortlessly and automatically takes in new ideas, which remain in limbo until verified or rejected by conscious, rational analysis.
Rene Descartes
#60. Neither divine grace nor natural knowledge ever diminishes freedom.
Rene Descartes
#61. Few look for truth; many prowl about for a reputation of profundity by arrogantly challenging whichever arguments are the best.
Rene Descartes
#62. When it is not in our power to follow what is true, we ought to follow what is most probable.
Rene Descartes
#63. The chief cause of human errors is to be found in the prejudices picked up in childhood.
Rene Descartes
#64. If ... it is not in my power to arrive at the knowledge of any truth, I may at least do what is in my power, namely, suspend judgement ...
Rene Descartes
#65. The first precept was never to accept a thing as true until I knew it as such without a single doubt.
Rene Descartes
#66. My third maxim was to try always to master myself rather than fortune and change my desires rather than changing how things stand in the world.
Rene Descartes
#67.
Bene vixit, bene qui latuit.
(to live well is to live concealed)
Rene Descartes
#68. 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.
Rene Descartes
#69. The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest men of past centuries.
Rene Descartes
#70. Gratitude is a species of love, excited in us by some action of the person for whom we have it, and by which we believe that he has done some good to us, or at least that he has had the intention of doing so.
Passions, III, 193. XI, 473-474. Trans. John Morris
Rene Descartes
#72. One needs to know what thought is, what existence is and what certainty is.
Rene Descartes
#74. Mathematics is a more powerful instrument of knowledge than any other that has been bequeathed to us by human agency.
Rene Descartes
#75. The last rule was to make enumerations so complete, and reviews so comprehensive, that I should be certain of omitting nothing.
Rene Descartes
#76. One cannot conceive anything so strange and so implausible that it has not already been said by one philosopher or another.
Rene Descartes
#77. Je pense, donc je suis; English: I think, therefore I am)
Rene Descartes
#78. The destruction of the foundations necessarily brings down the whole edifice.
Rene Descartes
#80. 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.
Rene Descartes
#81. A state is better governed which has few laws, and those laws strictly observed.
Rene Descartes
#82. Good sense is the most equitably distributed of all things because no matter how much or little a person has, everyone feels so abundantly provided with good sense that he feels no desire for more than he already possesses.
Rene Descartes
#83. Good sense is, of all things among men, the most equally distributed; for every one thinks himself so abundantly provided with it, that those even who are the most difficult to satisfy in everything else, do not usually desire a larger measure of this quality than they already possess.
Rene Descartes
#84. Am I so tied to a body and senses that I am incapable of existing without them?
Rene Descartes
#85. And thereby make ourselves, as it were, the lords and masters of nature.
Rene Descartes
#86. It is not my design to teach the method that everyone must follow in order to use his reason properly, but only to show the way in which I have tried to use my own.
Rene Descartes
#87. I resolv'd to faign, that all those things which ever entred into my Minde, were no more true, then the illusions of my dreams.
Rene Descartes
#88. Common sense is the most widely shared commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it.
Rene Descartes
#89. It is thus quite certain that the constitution of the true religion, the ordinances of which are derived from God, must be incomparably superior to that of every other.
Rene Descartes
#90. 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
#91. On the other hand, when too much time is occupied in traveling, we become strangers to our native country; and the over curious in the customs of the past are generally ignorant of those of the present.
Rene Descartes
#92. But what then am I? A thing that thinks. What is that? A thing that doubts, understand, affirms, denies, wills, refuses, and that also imagines and senses.
Rene Descartes
#93. It is contrary to reasoning to say that there is a vacuum or space in which there is absolutely nothing.
Rene Descartes
#95. It is a common failing of mortals to deem the more difficult the fairer.
Rene Descartes
#96. Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it.
Rene Descartes
#97. But in my opinion, all things in nature occur mathematically.
Rene Descartes
#98. Moral certainty is certainty which is sufficient to regulate our behaviour, or which measures up to the certainty we have on matters relating to the conduct of life which we never normally doubt, though we know that it is possible, absolutely speaking, that they may be false.
Rene Descartes
#99. The principal use of prudence, of self-control, is that it teaches us to be masters of our passions, and to so control and guide them that the evils which they cause are quite bearable, and that we even derive joy from them all.
Rene Descartes
#100. Therefore from the fact alone that I know that I exist and that, at the same time, I notice absolutely nothing else that belongs to my nature apart from the single fact that I am a thinking thing, I correctly conclude that my essence consists in this alone, that I am a thinking thing.
Rene Descartes
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