René Descartes Quotes

Some people would deny the existence of such a powerful God rather than believe that everything else is uncertain. Let us grant them – for purposes of argument – that there is no God, and theology is fiction. On their view, then, I am a product of fate or chance or a long chain of causes and effects. But the less powerful they make my original cause, the more likely it is that I am so imperfect as to be deceived all the time – because deception and error seem to be imperfections.

Γιατί επανέρχονται στη σκέψη μου αυτές οι συνηθισμένες απόψεις και κατακτούν την πίστη μου, σαν να τους δίνει το δικαίωμα η μακροχρόνια εξοικείωση μαζί μου να κυριεύσουν το πνέυμα μου, ακόμα και σχεδόν ενάντια στη θέληση μου

I doubt;
Therefore, I think
Therefore, I am.

I see;
I take in the colours around me.
The patterns, the lights, the rainbows.
I see the night and the stars that glow.

I dream;
Therefore, I think.
Therefore, I am.

I smell;
The perfumes, the roses.
The stench, the rotten and the putrid.
The aromas and delicacies;
Cooking.

I inhale;
The green, the forest, the trees.
Therefore, I think.
Therefore, I am.

I hear;
The noises. The people, the cheer.
The wails, the screams, the tears.
The rejoicing.
The laughter, and happiness.

I listen;
Therefore, I think.
Therefore, I am.

I taste;
The sweetness, the fire.
The treats, and savoury delights.
The burnt, the spoilt and the tasteless.
The sourness and the bitterness.

I eat;
Therefore, I think.
Therefore, I am.

I speak;
Short messages. Long speeches.
Quiet whispers. Bellowing noises.

I scream;
Therefore, I think,
Therefore, I am.

I feel;
The despair.
The anguish, the fear.
The pricks, the cuts, the injuries.
The joy. The pride. The seething.
The envy, greed, and jealousy.
The cold, the heat and the shivering.
The pain, the sickness, the ageing.

I die;
Therefore, I lived.
Therefore, I was.

in order to seek truth, it is necessary once in the course of our life, to doubt, as far as possible, of all things.

And I have always had an especially great desire to learn to distinguish the true from the false, in order to see my way clearly in my actions, and to go forward with confidence in this life. It is true that, so long as I merely considered the customs of other men, I found hardly anything there about which to be confident, and that I noticed there was about as much diversity as I had previously found among the opinions of philosophers. Thus the greatest profit I derived from this was that, on seeing many things that, although they seem to us very extravagant and ridiculous, do not cease to be commonly accepted and approved among other great peoples, I learned not to believe anything too firmly of which I had been persuaded only by example and custom; and thus I little by little freed myself from many errors that can darken our natural light and render us less able to listen to reason. But after I had spent some years thus studying in the book of the world and in trying to gain some experience, I resolved one day to study within myself too and to spend all the powers of my mind in choosing the paths that I should follow.

Η ικανότητα να κρίνει κανείς ορθά και να διακρίνει το σωστό από το λάθος- γεγονός στο οποίο ακριβώς εγκείται αυτό που ονομάζεται κοινός νους και λογική- είναι από τη φύση της ίδια σε όλυος τους ανθρώπους, και ότι, για τον λόγο αυτόν, η διαφορετικότητα των απόψεων μας δεν εξαρτάται από το γεγονός ότι κάποιοι είναι περισσότερο λογικοί απ' ό,τι άλλου, παρά μόνο από το ότι ακολουθούμε με ετις σκέψεις μας διαφορετικούς δρόμους και δεν λαμβάνουμε υπόψη μας τα ίδια πράγματα.

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.

Zira öyle çok kuşku ve yanılgıyla kuşatılmış bulunuyordum ki kendimi yetiştiremeye çalışırken elde ettiğim tek kazanç gitgide cahilliğimi görmeye başlamış olmam gibi geliyordu bana.

اراده یا آزادی انتخاب که شخصاً در مورد خودم تجربه کردم آنقدر گسترده است که تصور وجود یک توانایی از آن گسترده تر از قدرت درک من خارج است

But this could not be the case with-the idea of a nature more perfect than myself; for to receive it from nothing was a thing manifestly impossible; and, because it is not less repugnant that the more perfect should be an effect of, and dependence on the less perfect, than that something should proceed from nothing, it was equally impossible that I could hold it from myself:

Those who possess
the strongest reasoning and who best order their thoughts in order to
make them clear and intelligible can always best persuade others of what
they are proposing, even if they were to speak only Low Breton and had
never learned rhetoric.

He who lives well lives well hidden.

By intuition I mean, not the wavering assurance of the senses, or the deceitful judgment of a misconstructed imagination, but a conception, formed by unclouded mental attention, so easy and distinct as to leave no room for doubt in regard to the thing we are understanding.

I think; therfore I am.

Remembering, however, as I have already said, that the natural light is to be
trusted only in so far as nothing to the contrary is revealed by God Himself. …
Moreover, it must be fixed in one's memory as the highest rule, that what has
been revealed to us by God is to be believed as the most certain of all things;
and even though the light of reason should seem most clearly to suggest
something else, we must nevertheless give creedence to the divine authority
only, rather than our own judgment. (Principia philosophiae, pars prima 28 and
76.)