Top 100 Quotes About Rene Descartes
#1. Rene Descartes, in order to raise skeptical doubts about even our firmest certainties, imagined that we might he under the influence of an evil demon, and more modern philosophers have speculated about the possibility of our being brains in vats.
Victor Reppert
#2. Wow. I'm twenty years old. Rene Descartes invented analytic geometry in his early twenties. Talk about pressure.
Anna Kay Akana
#3. When people say that animal rescuers are crazy, what they really mean is that animal rescuers share a number of fundamental beliefs that makes them easy to marginalize. Among those is the belief that Rene Descartes was a jackass.
Steven Kotler
#4. 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
#5. The will determines itself; it should not be described as blind, any more than vision should be described as deaf.
Rene Descartes
#6. 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
#7. And even though we have read all the arguments of Plato and Aristotle, we shall never become philosophers if we are unable to make a sound judgement on matters which come up for discussion; in this case what we would seem to have learnt would not be science but history.
Rene Descartes
#8. You just keep pushing. You just keep pushing. I made every mistake that could be made. But I just kept pushing.
Rene Descartes
#9. Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has.
Rene Descartes
#10. 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.
Rene Descartes
#11. Whenever anyone has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that the offense cannot reach it.
Rene Descartes
#12. 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 the increasing discovery of my own ignorance
Rene Descartes
#13. It is possible that I am dreaming right now and that all of my perceptions are false.
Rene Descartes
#14. 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.
Rene Descartes
#16. I was convinced that our beliefs are based much more on custom and example than on any certain knowledge.
Rene Descartes
#17. And I shall always hold myself more obliged to those by whose favour I enjoy uninterrupted leisure than to any who might offer me the most honourable positions in the world.
Rene Descartes
#18. 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
#19. Human wisdom remains always one and the same although applied to the most diverse objects and it is no more changed by their diversity than the sunshine is changed by the variety of objects which it illuminates.
Rene Descartes
#20. Of all things, good sense is the most fairly distributed: everyone thinks he is so well supplied with it that even those who are the hardest to satisfy in every other respect never desire more of it than they already have.
Rene Descartes
#21. It is certain that I am really distinct from my body, and can exist without it.
Rene Descartes
#22. 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
#23. In the matter of a difficult question it is more likely that the truth should have been discovered by the few than by the many.
Rene Descartes
#24. 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
#25. Those who reason most powerfully and are the most successful at ordering their thoughts so as to make them clear and intelligible will always be best able to persuade others of what they say, even if they speak in the thickest of dialects
Rene Descartes
#28. At last I will devote myself sincerely and without reservation to the general demolition of my opinions.
Rene Descartes
#29. It is a mark of prudence never to place our complete trust in those who have deceived us even once.
Rene Descartes
#30. So blind is the curiosity by which mortals are possessed, that they often conduct their minds along unexplored routes, having no reason to hope for success, but merely being willing to risk the experiment of finding whether the truth they seek lies there.
Rene Descartes
#31. When I turn my mind's eye upon myself, I understand that I am a thing which is incomplete and dependent on another and which aspires without limit to ever greater and better things ...
Rene Descartes
#32. To know what people really think, pay attention to what they do, rather than what they say.
Rene Descartes
#33. If I find some reason for doubt in each of my beliefs, that will be enough to reject all of them.
Rene Descartes
#34. 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
#35. 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
#36. 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
#37. 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
#38. 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
#39. 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.
Rene Descartes
#41. It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well.
Rene Descartes
#42. 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
#43. 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.
Rene Descartes
#46. [I]t seems to be just as foolish to say, 'I imagine, in order to understand more clearly what I am,' as to say, 'I am now clearly awake and I see something true, but because I do not yet see it clearly enough I shall fall asleep so that my dreams will represent it to me more truly and clearly.
Rene Descartes
#48. 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
#49. To live without philosophizing is in truth the same as keeping the eyes closed without attempting to open them.
Rene Descartes
#50. One should never judge anything unless it is known.
Rene Descartes
#52. Several years have now passed since I first realized how numerous were the false opinions that in my youth I had taken to be true, and thus how doubtful were all those that I had subsequently built upon them.
Rene Descartes
#53. 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
#54. 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
#55. It is prudent never to trust those who have deceived us, even if only once.
Rene Descartes
#56. It's the familiar love-hate syndrome of seduction: "I don't really care what it is I say, I care only that you like it."
Rene Descartes
#57. For to be possessed of a vigorous mind is not enough; the prime requisite is rightly to apply it.
Rene Descartes
#58. How do we know that anything really exists, that anything is really the way it seems ot us through our senses?
Rene Descartes
#59. 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
#60. 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
#61. And it is evident that it is not less repugnant that falsity or imperfection, in so far as it is imperfection, should proceed from God, than that truth or perfection should proceed from nothing.
Rene Descartes
#62. Desire awakens only to things that are thought possible.
Rene Descartes
#63. 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
#66. Thought I had said enough respecting them to show that there is nothing observable in the heavens or stars of our system that must not, or at least may not appear precisely alike in those of the system which I described.
Rene Descartes
#67. I think, therefore I am" vs. "As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.
Rene Descartes
#68. A person has two passions for love and abhorrence. A big disposition to excessiveness has just a love, because it is more ardent and stronger.
Rene Descartes
#69. So that there resulted a chaos as disordered as the poets ever feigned,
Rene Descartes
#70. It is only prudent never to place complete confidence in that by which we have even once been deceived.
Rene Descartes
#71. In order to seek truth, it is necessary once in the course of our life to doubt, as far as possible, of all things.
Rene Descartes
#72. I am indeed amazed when I consider how weak my mind is and how prone to error.
Rene Descartes
#73. Thereafter, I showed how the greatest part of the matter of this chaos must, in accordance with these laws, dispose and arrange itself in such a way as to present the appearance of heavens;
Rene Descartes
#74. There is nothing so far removed from us to be beyond our reach, or so far hidden that we cannot discover it.
Rene Descartes
#76. Intuitive knowledge is an illumination of the soul, whereby it beholds in the light of God those things which it pleases Him to reveal to us by a direct impression of divine clearness.
Rene Descartes
#77. that we conduct our thoughts along different ways, and do not fix our attention on the same objects.
Rene Descartes
#78. I can doubt everything, except one thing, and that is the very fact that I doubt. Simply put - I think, therefore I am
Rene Descartes
#79. 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
#80. 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
#81. For the very fact that my knowledge is increasing little by little is the most certain argument for its imperfection.
Rene Descartes
#82. For each of us there is a set limit to our intellectual powers which we cannot pass.
Rene Descartes
#83. But, because I had already very clearly recognized in myself that the intelligent nature is distinct from the corporeal,
Rene Descartes
#84. It is best not to go on for great quest for truth , it will only make you miserable
Rene Descartes
#85. 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
#86. I am like a prisoner who happens on enjoy an imaginary freedom in his dreams and who subsequently begins to suspect that he is asleep and, afraid of being awakened, conspires silently with his agreeable illusions.
Rene Descartes
#87. They do everything in their power to make fortune favor them in this life, but nevertheless they think so little of it, in relation to eternity, that they view the events of the world as we do those of a play.
Rene Descartes
#88. 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
#89. Travelling is almost like talking with those of other centuries.
Rene Descartes
#91. We never understand a thing so well,and make it our own, as when we have discovered it for ourselves.
Rene Descartes
#92. Now therefore, that my mind is free from all cares, and that I have obtained for myself assured leisure in peaceful solitude, I shall apply myself seriously and freely to the general destruction of all my former opinions.
Rene Descartes
#93. I accept no principles of physics which are not also accepted in mathematics.
Rene Descartes
#94. 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
#95. I fear being shaken out of them because I am afraid that my peaceful sleep may be followed by hard labour when I wake, and that I shall have to struggle not in the light but in the imprisoning darkness of the problems I have raised.
Rene Descartes
#96. 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
#98. 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
#99. 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
#100. Dubium sapientiae initium. (Doubt is the origin of wisdom.)
Rene Descartes
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