René Descartes Quotes

Mais apud me omnia fiunt Mathematicè in Natura

But after I had imployed some years in thus studying the Book of the World, and endeavouring to get experience, I took one day a resolution to study also within my self, and to employ all the forces of my minde in the choice of the way I was to follow: which (me thought) succeeded much better, then if I had never estranged my self from my Country, or from my Books.

"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"

Method consists entirely in properly ordering and arranging the things to which we should pay attention.

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

i manifestly understand that there is more reality in infinite than in finite substance, and that therefore the perception of the infinite in me must be in some way prior to that of the finite: the perception of god, in other words, prior to that of myself. for how could i possibly understand that i doubt, and that i desire, that is, that there is something lacking in me, and that i am not completely perfect, if there were no idea in me of a more perfect being, by comparison with which i could recognize my own shortcomings?

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.

The brutes, which have only their bodies to conserve, are continually occupied in seeking sources of nourishment; but men, of whom the chief part is the mind, ought to make the search after wisdom their principal care, for wisdom is the true nourishment of the mind; and I feel assured, moreover, that there are very many who would not fail in the search, if they would but hope for success in it, and knew the degree of their capabilities for it.

Several years have now passed since I fi rst 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. And thus I realized that
once in my life I had to raze everything to the ground and begin again from the
original foundations, if I wanted to establish anything firm and lasting in the sciences.

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...

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.

I think; therefore I am.

[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.

我思う故に我あり

I think therefore I am.