The Works of Rene Descartes Quotes

“My third maxim was to endeavour always to conquer myself rather than fortune, and change my desires rather than the order of the world, and in general, accustom myself to the persuasion that, except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power;”
― René Descartes, The Rene Descartes Collection: His Classic Works

“The second, to divide each of the difficulties under examination into as many parts as possible, and as might be necessary for its adequate solution.”
― René Descartes, The Rene Descartes Collection: His Classic Works

“I had always a most earnest desire to know how to distinguish the true from the false, in order that I might be able clearly to discriminate the right path in life, and proceed it in with confidence.”
― René Descartes, The Rene Descartes Collection: His Classic Works

“For these reasons, as soon as my age permitted me to pass from under the control of my instructors, I entirely abandoned the study of letters, and resolved no longer to seek any other science than the knowledge of myself, or of the great book of the world. I spent the remainder of my youth in traveling, in visiting courts and armies, in holding intercourse with men of different dispositions and ranks, in collecting varied experience, in proving myself in the different situations into which fortune threw me,”
― René Descartes, The Works of Rene Descartes

“And the last, in every case to make enumerations so complete, and reviews so general, that I might be assured that nothing was omitted.”
― René Descartes, The Rene Descartes Collection: His Classic Works

“The third, to conduct my thoughts in such order that, by commencing with objects the simplest and easiest to know, I might ascend by little and little, and, as it were, step by step, to the knowledge of the more complex; assigning in thought a certain order even to those objects which in their own nature do not stand in a relation of antecedence and sequence.”
― René Descartes, The Rene Descartes Collection: His Classic Works

“I was thus led to infer that the ground of our opinions is far more custom and example than any certain knowledge.”
― René Descartes, The Rene Descartes Collection: His Classic Works

“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. And”
― René Descartes, The Rene Descartes Collection: His Classic Works

“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.”
― René Descartes, The René Descartes Collection

“Science in its entirety is true and evident cognition.”
― René Descartes, Delphi Collected Works of René Descartes (Illustrated)

“compose que comme une même chose avec lui. Toutes les erreurs qui procèdent des sens y sont exposées, avec les moyens de les éviter. Et enfin, j'y apporte toutes les raisons desquelles on peut conclure l'existence des choses matérielles : non que je les juge fort utiles pour prouver ce qu'elles prouvent, à savoir, qu'il y a un monde, que les hommes ont des corps, et autres choses semblables, qui n'ont jamais été mises en doute par aucun homme de bon sens ; mais parce qu'en les considérant de près, l'on vient à connaître qu'elles ne sont pas si fermes ni si évidentes, que celles qui nous conduisent à la connaissance de Dieu et de notre âme ; en sorte que celles- ci sont les plus certaines et les plus évidentes qui puissent tomber”
― René Descartes, Oeuvres de René Descartes