René Descartes > Quotes

“Cogito ergo sum. (I think, therefore I am.)”
― René Descartes

“If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.”
― René Descartes

“The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest men of past centuries.”
― René Descartes

“When it is not in our power to determine what is true, we ought to follow what is most probable.”
― René Descartes

“Common sense is the most widely shared commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it.”
― René Descartes

“I suppose therefore that all things I see are illusions; I believe that nothing has ever existed of everything my lying memory tells me. I think I have no senses. I believe that body, shape, extension, motion, location are functions. What is there then that can be taken as true? Perhaps only this one thing, that nothing at all is certain.”
― René Descartes

“The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues.”
― René Descartes

“It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well.”
― René Descartes

“I desire to live in peace and to continue the life I have begun under the motto 'to live well you must live unseen”
― René Descartes, The Principles of Philosophy

“Doubt is the origin of wisdom”
― René Descartes

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

“For I found myself embarrassed with so many doubts and errors that it seemed to me that the effort to instruct myself had no effect other than th eincreasing discovery of my own ignorance”
― René Descartes, Discourse on Method

“Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power.”
― René Descartes

“Masked, I advance.”
― René Descartes

“There is nothing more ancient than the truth.”
― René Descartes

“In order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn than to contemplate.”
― René Descartes

“The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries.”
― René Descartes

“I think; therefore I am.”
― René Descartes

“Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems”
― René Descartes

“At last I will devote myself sincerely and without reservation to the general demolition of my opinions.”
― René Descartes, Discourse on Method

“But I cannot forget that, at other times I have been deceived in sleep by similar illusions; and, attentively considering those cases, I perceive so clearly that there exist no certain marks by which the state of waking can ever be distinguished from sleep, that I feel greatly astonished; and in amazement I almost persuade myself that I am now dreaming.”
― René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy

“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.”
― René Descartes

“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...”
― René Descartes

“I experienced in myself a certain capacity for judging which I have doubtless received from God, like all the other things that I possess; and as He could not desire to deceive me, it is clear that He has not given me a faculty that will lead me to err if I use it aright.”
― René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy: In Which the Existence of God and the Distinction of the Soul from the Body Are Demonstrated

“He who hid well, lived well.”
― René Descartes

“...it is a mark of prudence never to place our complete trust in those who have deceived us even once.”
― René Descartes

“Let whoever can do so deceive me, he will never bring it about that I am nothing, so long as I continue to think I am something.”
― René Descartes

“To know what people really think, pay attention to what they do, rather than what they say.”
― René Descartes

“Dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum.

(English: "I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am")”
― René Descartes

“Before examining this more carefully and investigating its consequences, I want to dwell for a moment in the contemplation of God, to ponder His attributes in me, to see, admire, and adore the beauty of His boundless light, insofar as my clouded insight allows. Believing that the supreme happiness of the other life consists wholly of the contemplation of divine greatness, I now find that through less perfect contemplation of the same sort I can gain the greatest joy available in this life.”
― René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy

“I doubt, therefore i think”
― René Descartes

“Bad books engender bad habits, but bad habits engender good books.”
― René Descartes

“I suppose therefore that all things I see are illusions; I believe that nothing has ever existed of everything my lying memory tells me. I think I have no senses. I believe that body, shape, extension, motion, location are functions. What is there then that can be taken as true? Perhaps only this one thing, that nothing at all is certain ... But I cannot forget that, at other times I have been deceived in sleep by similar illusions; and, attentively considering those cases, I perceive so clearly that there exist no certain marks by which the state of waking can ever be distinguished from sleep, that I feel greatly astonished; and in amazement I almost persuade myself that I am now dreaming ... I am accustomed to sleep and in my dreams to imagine the same things that lunatics imagine when awake ... There is nothing more ancient than the truth.”
― René Descartes

“I am thing that thinks: that is, a things that doubts,affirms, denies, understands a few things, is ignorant of many things, is willing, is unwilling, and also which imagines and has sensory perceptions.”
― René Descartes, Descartes Selections

“I think therefore I am.”
― René Descartes

“What then is the source of my errors? They are owing simply to the fact that, since the will extends further than the intellect, I do not contain the will within the same boundaries; rather, I also extend it to things I do not understand. Because the will is indifferent in regard to such matters, it easily turns away from the true and the good; and in this way I am deceived and I sin.”
― René Descartes

“I knew that the languages which one learns there are necessary to understand the works of the ancients; and that the delicacy of fiction enlivens the mind; that famous deeds of history ennoble it and, if read with understanding, aid in maturing one's judgment; that the reading of all the great books is like conversing with the best people of earlier times; it is even studied conversation in which the authors show us only the best of their thoughts; that eloquence has incomparable powers and beauties; that poetry has enchanting delicacy and sweetness; that mathematics has very subtle processes which can serve as much to satisfy the inquiring mind as to aid all the arts and diminish man's labor; that treatises on morals contain very useful teachings and exhortations to virtue; that theology teaches us how to go to heaven; that philosophy teaches us to talk with appearance of truth about things, and to make ourselves admired by the less learned; that law, medicine, and the other sciences bring honors and wealth to those who pursue them; and finally, that it is desirable to have examined all of them, even to the most superstitious and false in order to recognize their real worth and avoid being deceived thereby”
― René Descartes, Discours de la Methode pour Bien Conduire sa Raison & Chercher la Verité dans les Sciences plus La Dioptrique et Les Meteores qui Sont des Essais de Cete Methode

“Common sense is the best distributed commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it”
― René Descartes

“La lecture de tous les bons livres est comme une conversation avec les plus honnêtes gens des siècles passés.”
― René Descartes

“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.”
― René Descartes, Méditations Métaphysiques

“I will suppose, then, not that Deity, who is sovereignly good and the fountain of truth, but that some malignant demon, who is at once exceedingly potent and deceitful, has employed all his artifice to deceive me; I will suppose that the sky, the air, the earth, colors, figures, sounds, and all external things, are nothing better than the illusions of dreams, by means of which this being has laid snares for my credulity; I will consider myself as without hands, eyes, flesh, blood, or any of the senses, and as falsely believing that I am possessed of these; I will continue resolutely fixed in this belief, and if indeed by this means it be not in my power to arrive at the knowledge of truth, I shall at least do what is in my power, viz, [ suspend my judgment ], and guard with settled purpose against giving my assent to what is false, and being imposed upon by this deceiver, whatever be his power and artifice. But this undertaking is arduous, and a certain indolence insensibly leads me back to my ordinary course of life; and just as the captive, who, perchance, was enjoying in his dreams an imaginary liberty, when he begins to suspect that it is but a vision, dreads awakening, and conspires with the agreeable illusions that the deception may be prolonged; so I, of my own accord, fall back into the train of my former beliefs, and fear to arouse myself from my slumber, lest the time of laborious wakefulness that would succeed this quiet rest, in place of bringing any light of day, should prove inadequate to dispel the darkness that will arise from the difficulties that have now been raised.”
― René Descartes

“The reading of good books is like a conversation with the noblest minds of past centuries.”
― René Descartes

“I had become aware, as early as my college days, that no opinion, however absurd and incredible can be imagined, that has not been held by one of the philosophers.”
― René Descartes, Discourse on Method

“The first precept was never to accept a thing as true until I knew it as such without a single doubt.”
― René Descartes

“Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems.”
― René Descartes

“Le bon sens est la chose du monde la mieux partagée : car chacun pense en être si bien pourvu, que ceux même qui sont les plus difficiles à contenter en toute autre chose, n'ont point coutume d'en désirer plus qu'ils en ont.”
― René Descartes, Discours de la Methode pour Bien Conduire sa Raison & Chercher la Verité dans les Sciences plus La Dioptrique et Les Meteores qui Sont des Essais de Cete Methode

“Cogito ergo sum..”
― René Descartes

“Some years ago I was struck by the large number of falsehoods that I had accepted as true in my childhood, and by the highly doubtful nature of the whole edifice that I had subsequently based on them. I realized that it was necessary, once in the course of my life, to demolish everything completely and start again right from the foundations if I wanted to establish anything at all in the sciences that was stable and likely to last.”
― René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy

“although we very clearly see the sun, we ought not therefore to determine that it is only of the size which our sense of sight presents; and we may very distinctly imagine the head of a lion joined to the body of a goat, without being therefore shut up to the conclusion that a chimaera exists; for it is not a dictate of reason that what we thus see or imagine is in reality existent; but it plainly tells us that all our ideas or notions contain in them some truth.”
― René Descartes, Discourse on Method

“je pense, donc je suis”
― René Descartes