Just as faith teaches us that the sovereign felicity of the other life consists in the contemplation of the divine majesty alone, so even now we can … - René Descartes

Γνωρίζω ότι υπάρχω, και ρωτάω ποιος είμαι εγώ, το εγώ που γνωρίζω. Είναι παραπάνω από βέβαιο ότι γνώση που έχω γι' αυτό το εγώ, με την ακριβή του έννοια, δεν εξαρτάται από αυτό που δεν γνωρίζω ακόμα αν υπάρχει.

My third maxim was to try always to master myself rather than fortune and change my desires rather than changing how things stand in the world.

Those in whom the faculty of reason is predominant, and who most skillfully dispose their thoughts with a view to render them clear and intelligible, are always the best able to persuade others of the truth of what they lay down, though they should speak only in the language of Lower Brittany, and be wholly ignorant of the rules of rhetoric; and those whose minds are stored with the most agreeable fancies, and who can give expression to them with the greatest embellishment and harmony, are still the best poets, though unacquainted with the art of poetry.