René Descartes Quotes

For I found myself involved in so many doubts and errors, that I was convinced I had advanced no farther in all my attempts at learning, than the discovery at every turn of my own ignorance.

[About Pierre de Fermat] 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.

If I find some reason for doubt in each of my beliefs, that will be enough to reject all of them.

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.

was most keen on mathematics, because of its certainty and the incontrovertibility* of its proofs; but I did not yet see its true use. Believing as I did that its only application was to the mechanical arts,* I was astonished that nothing more exalted had been built on such sure and solid foundations; whereas, on the other hand, I compared the moral works of ancient pagan writers to splendid and magnificent palaces built on nothing more than sand and mud.

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.

Je puis me persuader d'avoir été fait tel par la nature que je puisse aisément me tromper même dans les choses que je crois comprendre avec le plus d'évidence et de certitude.

I am thinking, therefore I exist.

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

philosophes qui ont pu autrefois se soustraire de l'empire de la fortune, et, malgré les douleurs et la pauvreté, disputer de la félicité avec leurs dieux. Car s'occupant sans cesse à considérer les bornes qui leur étaient prescrites par la nature, ils se persuadaient si parfaitement que rien n'était en leur pouvoir que leurs pensées, que cela seul était suffisant pour les empêcher d'avoir aucune affection pour d'autres choses; et ils disposaient d'elles si absolument qu'ils avaient en cela quelque raison de s'estimer plus riches, et plus puissants, et plus libres, et plus heureux qu'aucun des autres hommes, qui, n'ayant point cette philosophie, tant favorisés de la nature et de la fortune qu'ils puissent être, ne disposent jamais ainsi de tout ce qu'ils veulent. (partie 3, para 4)

they who make pretensions to philosophy are often less wise and reasonable than others who never applied themselves to the study,

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.

One needs to know what thought is, what existence is and what certainty is.

And the last, in every case to make enumerations so complete, and reviews so general, that I might be assured that nothing was omitted.

Con frecuencia una falsa alegría vale más que una tristeza cuya causa es verdadera.