Meditations and Other Metaphysical Writings Quotes

One should never judge anything unless it is known.

Am I so tied to a body and senses that I am incapable of existing without them?

The thinking of the mind is twofold: understanding and willing.

The very desire to seek the truth often causes people, who do not know how it should be sought correctly, to make judgements about things that they do not perceive and in that way they make mistakes.

I am like a prisoner who happens on enjoy an imaginary freedom in his dreams and who subsequently begins to suspect that he is asleep and, afraid of being awakened, conspires silently with his agreeable illusions.

Nothing is made from nothing.

It is prudent never to trust those who have deceived us, even if only once.

The will determines itself; it should not be described as blind, any more than vision should be described as deaf.

To think? That's it. It is thought. This alone cannot be detached from me. I am, I exist; that is certain.

I will follow this strategy until I discover something that is certain or, at least, until I discover that it is certain only that nothing is certain.

Certainly no one can deny that we have such an idea of God in ourselves unless they think that there is no knowledge at all of God in human minds.

It is enough that I can understand one thing, clearly and distinctly, without another in order to be certain that one thing is distinct from the other.

I am, I exist.

As regards the soul, many people thought that its nature cannot easily be investigated, and some have even dared say that human reason shows us that the soul dies with the body and that the contrary view is held by faith alone; however, the Lateran Council, held under Leo X (Session 8), condemns them and explicitly commands Christian philosophers to defeat their arguments and prove the truth to the best of their abilities, and therefore I too have not hesitated to take on this challenge.