René Descartes Quotes

¿hay acaso algo más íntimo o más interior que el dolor?

I would like those who are not at all versed in anatomy to take the trouble, before reading this, to have the heart of some large animal that has lungs dissected in their presence (for such a heart is in all respects sufficiently similar to that of a man), and to be shown the two chambers or cavities that are in it.

"‎"Não há nada que dominemos inteiramente a nao ser os nossos pensamentos.

la lectura de todos los buenos libros es como una conversación con los mejores ingenios de los pasados siglos,

Mais lorsqu'on emploie trop de temps à voyager, on devient enfin étranger en son pays; et lorsqu'on est trop curieux des choses qui se pratiquoient aux siècles passés, on demeure ordinairement fort ignorant de celles qui se pratiquent en celui-ci.

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.

so that even although he had from the beginning given it no other form than that of chaos, provided only he had established certain laws of nature, and had lent it his concurrence to enable it to act as it is wont to do, it may be believed, without discredit to the miracle of creation, that, in this way alone, things purely material might, in course of time, have become such as we observe them at present; and their nature is much more easily conceived when they are beheld coming in this manner gradually into existence, than when they are only considered as produced at once in a finished and perfect state.

Yesterday’s meditation raised doubts — ones that are too serious to be ignored — which I can see no way of resolving. I feel like someone who is suddenly dropped into a deep whirlpool that tumbles him around so that he can neither stand on the bottom nor swim to the top. However, I shall force my way up, and try once more to carry out the project that I started on yesterday.

Je donnerais tout ce que je sais pour la moitié de ce que je ne sais pas.

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.

Et pour nous, en voyant des choses dans lesquelles, selon certains sens, nous ne remarquons point de limites, nous n’assurerons pas pour cela qu’elles soient infinies, mais nous les estimerons seulement indéfinies

De wortel is metafysica, de stam is fysica en de takken die daaruit voorkomen, zijn alle andere wetenschappen.

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.)

Καλό είναι να έχουμε κάποιες γνώσεις για τα ήθη των διαφόρων λαών, έτσι ώστε να κρίνουμε τα δικά μας πιο δίκαια και να μη θεωρούμε πως οτιδήποτε διαφέρει από τις δικές μας συνήθειες είναι γελοίο και αντίθετο προς τη λογική, όπως κάνουν όσοι δεν έχουν δει τίποτα.

The whole force of the argument rests on the fact that I recognize that it would be impossible for me to exist, being of such a
nature as I am (namely, having in me the idea of God), unless God did
in fact exist. God, I say, that same being the idea of whom is in me: a
being having all those perfections that I cannot comprehend, but can
somehow touch with my thought, and a being subject to no defects
whatever. From these considerations it is quite obvious that he cannot be
a deceiver, for it is manifest by the light of nature that all fraud and
deception depend on some defect