Rene Descartes Quotes

Booty Butt, Booty Butt, Booty Butt Cheeks ~ Rene Descartes

He (Rene Descartes) posited the existence of two parallel yet separate domains of reality: res cogitans, the thinking substance of the subjective mind whose essence is thought, and res extensa, or the extended substance of the material world. Mental stuff and material (including brain) stuff are absolutely distinct, he argued. ~ Jeffrey M. Schwartz

Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has. ~ Rene Descartes

Although my knowledge grows more and more, nevertheless I do not for that reason believe that it can ever be actually infinite, since it can never reach a point so high that it will be unable to attain any greater increase. ~ Rene Descartes

You just keep pushing. You just keep pushing. I made every mistake that could be made. But I just kept pushing. ~ Rene Descartes

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. ~ Rene Descartes

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. ~ Rene Descartes

He lives well who is well hidden. ~ Rene Descartes

It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well. ~ Rene Descartes

Wow. I'm twenty years old. Rene Descartes invented analytic geometry in his early twenties. Talk about pressure. ~ Anna Kay Akana

We must in the end acknowledge the infirmity of our nature ~ Rene Descartes

In philosophy, when we make use of false principles, we depart the farther from the knowledge of truth and wisdom exactly in proportion to the care with which we cultivate them, and apply ourselves to the deduction of diverse consequences from them, thinking that we are philosophizing well, while we are only departing the farther from the truth; from which it must be inferred that they who have learned the least of all that has been hitherto distinguished by the name of philosophy are the most fitted for the apprehension of truth. ~ Rene Descartes

It is certain that I am really distinct from my body, and can exist without it. ~ Rene Descartes

The dreams we imagine when we are asleep should not in any way make us doubt the truth of the thoughts we have when we are awake. ~ Rene Descartes

And as it is the most generous souls who have most gratitude, it is those who have most pride, and who are most base and infirm, who most allow themselves to be carried away by anger and hatred. ~ Rene Descartes

Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power. ~ Rene Descartes

Nothing can be imagined which is too strange or incredible to have been said by some philosopher. ~ Rene Descartes

Kepler's discovery would not have been possible without the doctrine of conics. Now contemporaries of Kepler - such penetrating minds as Descartes and Pascal - were abandoning the study of geometry ... because they said it was so UTTERLY USELESS. There was the future of the human race almost trembling in the balance; for had not the geometry of conic sections already been worked out in large measure, and had their opinion that only sciences apparently useful ought to be pursued, the nineteenth century would have had none of those characters which distinguish it from the ancien régime. ~ Charles Sanders Peirce

Suppose [a person] had a basket full of apples and, being worried that some of the apples were rotten, wanted to take out the rotten ones to prevent the rot spreading. How would he proceed? Would he not begin by tipping the whole lot out of the basket? And would not the next step be to cast his eye over each apple in turn, and pick up and put back in the basket only those he saw to be sound, leaving the others? In just the same way, those who have never philosophized correctly have various opinions in their minds which they have begun to store up since childhood, and which they therefore have reason to believe may in many cases be false. They then attempt to separate the false beliefs from the others, so as to prevent their contaminating the rest and making the whole lot uncertain. Now the best way they can accomplish this is to reject all their beliefs together in one go, as if they were all uncertain and false. They can then go over each belief in turn and re-adopt only those which they recognize to be true and indubitable. ~ Rene Descartes

And even though we have read all the arguments of Plato and Aristotle, we shall never become philosophers if we are unable to make a sound judgement on matters which come up for discussion; in this case what we would seem to have learnt would not be science but history. ~ Rene Descartes

It must not be thought that it is ever possible to reach the interior earth by any perseverance in mining: both because the exterior earth is too thick, in comparison with human strength; and especially because of the intermediate waters, which would gush forth with greater impetus, the deeper the place in which their veins were first opened; and which would drown all miners. ~ Rene Descartes

Intuition is the undoubting conception of a pure and attentive mind, which arises from the light of reason alone, and is more certain than deduction. ~ Rene Descartes

The first was never to accept anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such; that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitancy and prejudice, and to comprise nothing more in my judgment than what was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly as to exclude all ground of doubt. ~ Rene Descartes

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. ~ Rene Descartes

To attain the truth in life, we must discard all the ideas we were taught. ~ Rene Descartes

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. ~ Rene Descartes

There are some men who are counted great because they represent the actuality of their own age, and mirror it as it is. Such an one was Voltaire, of whom it was epigrammatically said: 'he expressed everybody's thoughts better than anyone.' But there are other men who attain greatness because they embody the potentiality of their own day and magically reflect the future. They express the thoughts which will be everybody's two or three centuries after them. Such as one was Descartes. ~ Thomas Henry Huxley

Intuitive knowledge is an illumination of the soul, whereby it beholds in the light of God those things which it pleases Him to reveal to us by a direct impression of divine clearness. ~ Rene Descartes

I took especially great pleasure in mathematics because of the certainty and the evidence of its arguments. ~ Rene Descartes

On the other hand, I compared the disquisitions of the ancient moralists to very towering and magnificent palaces with no better foundation than sand and mud: ~ Rene Descartes

The only secure knowledge is that I exist. ~ Rene Descartes

For it seemed to me that much more truth could be found in the reasonings which a man makes concerning matters that concern him than in those which some scholar makes in his study about speculative matters. For the consequences of the former will soon punish the man if he judges wrongly, whereas the latter have no practical consequences and no importance for the scholar except that perhaps the further they are from common sense the more pride he will take in them, since he will have had to use so much more skill and ingenuity in trying to render them plausible. ~ Rene Descartes

The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues. ~ Rene Descartes

Good sense is of all things in the world the most equally distributed, for everybody thinks he is so well supplied with it that even those most difficult to please in all other matters never desire more of it than they already possess. ~ Rene Descartes

So that there resulted a chaos as disordered as the poets ever feigned, ~ Rene Descartes

I am thinking, therefore I exist. ( ... ) I was a substance whose whole essence or nature is solely to think, and which does not require any place, or depend on any material thing, in order to exist. Accordingly this 'I' - that is, the soul by which I am what I am - is entirely distinct from the body, and indeed is easier to know than the body, and would not fail to be whatever it is, even if the body did not exist. ~ Rene Descartes

Situations in life often permit no delay; and when we cannot determine the course which is certainly best, we must follow the one which is probably the best. This frame of mind freed me also from the repentance and remorse commonly felt by those vacillating individuals who are always seeking as worthwhile things which they later judge to be bad. ~ Rene Descartes

Mathematics is a more powerful instrument of knowledge than any other that has been bequeathed to us by human agency. ~ Rene Descartes

Whenever anyone has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that the offense cannot reach it. ~ Rene Descartes

The majority of men is composed of two classes, for neither of which would this be at all a befitting resolution: in the first place, of those who with more than a due confidence in their own powers, are precipitate in their judgments and want the patience requisite for orderly and circumspect thinking; whence it happens, that if men of this class once take the liberty to doubt of their accustomed opinions, and quit the beaten highway, they will never be able to thread the byway that would lead them by a shorter course, and will lose themselves and continue to wander for life; in the second place, of those who, possessed of sufficient sense or modesty to determine that there are others who excel them in the power of discriminating between truth and error, and by whom they may be instructed, ought rather to content themselves with the opinions of such than trust for more correct to their own reason. ~ Rene 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. ~ Rene Descartes

All that is necessary to right action is right judgment, and to the best action the most correct judgment ~ Rene Descartes

An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why must the pessimist always run to blow it out? ~ Rene Descartes

Good sense is, of all things among men, the most equally distributed; for every one thinks himself so abundantly provided with it, that those even who are the most difficult to satisfy in everything else, do not usually desire a larger measure of this quality than they already possess. ~ Rene Descartes

Nothing comes out of nothing. ~ Rene Descartes

The principal use of prudence, of self-control, is that it teaches us to be masters of our passions, and to so control and guide them that the evils which they cause are quite bearable, and that we even derive joy from them all. ~ Rene Descartes

He who hid well, lived well. ~ Rene Descartes

Hence reason also demands that, since our thoughts cannot all be true because we are not wholly perfect, what truth they do possess must inevitably be found in the thoughts we have when awake, rather than in our dreams. ~ Rene Descartes

I think, therefore I am" vs. "As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. ~ Rene Descartes

They do everything in their power to make fortune favor them in this life, but nevertheless they think so little of it, in relation to eternity, that they view the events of the world as we do those of a play. ~ Rene Descartes

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

I fear being shaken out of them because I am afraid that my peaceful sleep may be followed by hard labour when I wake, and that I shall have to struggle not in the light but in the imprisoning darkness of the problems I have raised. ~ Rene Descartes

When I turn my mind's eye upon myself, I understand that I am a thing which is incomplete and dependent on another and which aspires without limit to ever greater and better things ... ~ Rene Descartes

If we possessed a thorough knowledge of all the parts of the seed of any animal (e.g. man), we could from that alone, be reasons entirely mathematical and certain, deduce the whole conformation and figure of each of its members, and, conversely if we knew several peculiarities of this conformation, we would from those deduce the nature of its seed. ~ Rene Descartes

Mind and soul of the man is entirely different from the body. ~ Rene 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. ~ Rene Descartes

I revered our theology, and aspired as much as any one to reach heaven: but being given assuredly to understand that the way is not less open to the most ignorant than to the most learned, and that the revealed truths which lead to heaven are above our comprehension, I did not presume to subject them to the impotency of my reason; and I thought that in order competently to undertake their examination, there was need of some special help from heaven, and of being more than man. ~ Rene Descartes

Therefore from the fact alone that I know that I exist and that, at the same time, I notice absolutely nothing else that belongs to my nature apart from the single fact that I am a thinking thing, I correctly conclude that my essence consists in this alone, that I am a thinking thing. ~ Rene Descartes

Nothing is made from nothing. ~ Rene Descartes

We call infinite that thing whose limits we have not perceived, and so by that word we do not signify what we understand about a thing, but rather what we do not understand. ~ Rene Descartes

The reading of all good books is indeed like a conversation with the noblest men of past centuries who were the authors of them, nay a carefully studied conversation, in which they reveal to us none but the best of their thoughts. ~ Rene Descartes

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

The perusal of all excellent books is, as it were, to interview with the noblest men of past ages, who have written them. ~ Rene Descartes

We do not describe the world we see, we see the world we can describe. ~ Rene Descartes

For, in fine, whether awake or asleep, we ought never to allow ourselves to be persuaded of the truth of anything unless on the evidence of our reason. And it must be noted that I say of our reason, and not of our imagination or of our senses: thus, for example, 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; ~ Rene Descartes

Neither the true nor the false roots are always real; sometimes they are imaginary; that is, while we can always imagine as many roots for each equation as I have assigned, yet there is not always a definite quantity corresponding to each root we have imagined. ~ Rene 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. ~ Rene Descartes

To live without philosophizing is in truth the same as keeping the eyes closed without attempting to open them. ~ Rene Descartes

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 learn from experience that a similar meditation, although incomparably less perfect, allows us to enjoy the greatest happiness we are capable of feeling in this life. ~ Rene Descartes

It is contrary to reasoning to say that there is a vacuum or space in which there is absolutely nothing. ~ Rene Descartes

On the one hand I have a clear and distinct idea of myself, in so far as I am a thinking, non-extended thing; and on the other hand I have a distinct idea of body, in so far a this is
simply an extended, non-thinking thing. And, accordingly, it is certain that I am really distinct from my body, and exist without it. ~ Rene Descartes

For indeed when painters themselves wish to represent sirens and satyrs [20] by means of especially bizarre forms, they surely cannot assign to them utterly new natures. Rather, they simply fuse together the members of various animals. Or if perhaps they concoct something so utterly novel that nothing like it has ever been seen before (and thus is something utterly fictitious and false), yet certainly at the very least the colors from which they fashion it ought to be true. And ~ Rene Descartes

As I considered the matter carefully it gradually came to light that all those matters only were referred to mathematics in which order and measurements are investigated, and that it makes no difference whether it be in numbers, figures, stars, sounds or any other object that the question of measurement arises. I saw consequently that there must be some general science to explain that element as a whole which gives rise to problems about order and measurement, restricted as these are to no special subject matter. This, I perceived was called 'universal mathematics'. ~ Rene Descartes

Moral certainty is certainty which is sufficient to regulate our behaviour, or which measures up to the certainty we have on matters relating to the conduct of life which we never normally doubt, though we know that it is possible, absolutely speaking, that they may be false. ~ Rene Descartes

There is a little gland in the brain in which the soul exercises its functions in a more particular way than in the other parts. ~ Rene Descartes

Reason is nothing without imagination. ~ Rene Descartes

Thus the perception of the infinite is somehow prior in me to the perception of the finite, that is, my perception of God is prior to my perception of myself. For how would I understand that I doubt and that I desire, that is, that I lack something and that I am not wholly perfect, unless there were some idea in me of a more perfect being, by comparison with which I might recognize my defects? ~ Rene Descartes

I concluded that I might take as a general rule the principle that all things which we very clearly and obviously conceive are true: only observing, however, that there is some difficulty in rightly determining the objects which we distinctly conceive. ~ Rene Descartes

Doubt is the origin of wisdom ~ Rene Descartes

But possibly I am something more than I suppose myself to be. ~ Rene Descartes

Common sense is the most widely shared commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it. ~ Rene Descartes

It is just as valuable to be censured by friends as it is splendid to be praised by enemies. We desire praise from those who do not know us, but from friends we want the truth. ~ Rene Descartes

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. ~ Rene Descartes

How do we know that anything really exists, that anything is really the way it seems ot us through our senses? ~ Rene Descartes

We never understand a thing so well,and make it our own, as when we have discovered it for ourselves. ~ Rene Descartes

And what more am I? I look for aid to the imagination. [But how mistakenly!] I am not that assemblage of limbs we call the human body; I am not a subtle penetrating air distributed throughout all these members; I am not a wind, a fire, a vapor, a breath or anything at all that I can image. I am supposing all these things to be nothing. Yet I find, while so doing, that I am still assured that I am a something. ~ Rene Descartes

But so soon as I had achieved the entire course of study at the close of which one is usually received into the ranks of the learned, I entirely changed my opinion. 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 the increasing discovery of my own ignorance. - Rene Descartes, Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason and Seeking the Truth in the Sciences, 1637 ~ Stuart Firestein

I think; therefore I am. ~ Rene Descartes

Even those who have the weakest souls could acquire absolute mastery over all their passions if we employed sufficient ingenuity in training and guiding them. ~ Rene Descartes

When people say that animal rescuers are crazy, what they really mean is that animal rescuers share a number of fundamental beliefs that makes them easy to marginalize. Among those is the belief that Rene Descartes was a jackass. ~ Steven Kotler

It is only prudent never to place complete confidence in that by which we have even once been deceived. ~ Rene Descartes

But what then am I? A thing that thinks. What is that? A thing that doubts, understand, affirms, denies, wills, refuses, and that also imagines and senses. ~ Rene Descartes

Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it. ~ Rene Descartes

That is why I can't in any way approve of those MEDDLESOME and RESTLESS characters who, without being called by BIRTH or by FORTUNE to the management of public affairs, are yet forever thinking up some new reform! If I thought this present work contained the SLIGHTEST ground for suspecting me of such FOLLY, I would SHRINK from allowing it to be published! My plan has NEVER gone beyond trying to reform my own thoughts and to build on a foundation that is ALL MY OWN. If I'm pleased enough with my work to present you with this sketch of it, it's not because I would advise anyone to imitate it. Those on whom GOD has bestowed more of his favours than he has on me will PERHAPS have higher aims; but I'm afraid that this project of mine may be too bold for many people! The mere decision to rid myself all the opinions I have hitherto accepted isn't an example that everyone ought to follow! The world is mostly made up of two types of minds for whom it is QUITE unsuitable. (1) There are those who, believing themselves cleverer than they are, can't help rushing to judgment and can't muster the patience to direct all their thoughts in an ORDERLY manner. So that if they ONCE took the liberty of doubting the principles they have accepted and leaving the common path, they would NEVER be able to stay on the straighter path that they ought to take, AND would REMAIN lost ALL their LIVES. (2) And there are those who are reasonable enough, or modest enough, to THINK that they can't distinguish tr ~ Rene Descartes

The nature of matter, or body considered in general, consists not in its being something which is hard or heavy or coloured, or which affects the senses in any way, but simply in its being something which is extended in length, breadth and depth. ~ Rene Descartes

And thus, the actions of life often not allowing any delay, it is a truth very certain that, when it is not in our power to determine the most true opinions we ought to follow the most probable. ~ Rene Descartes

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. ~ Rene Descartes

I must finally conclude that this proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind. ~ Rene Descartes

For the mind depends so much on the temperament and disposition of the bodily organs that, if it is possible to find a means of rendering men wiser and cleverer than they have hitherto been, I believe that it is in medicine that it must be sought. It is true that the medicine which is now in vogue contains little of which the utility is remarkable; but, without having any intention of decrying it, I am sure that there is no one, even among those who make its study a profession, who does not confess that all that men know is almost nothing in comparison with what remains to be known; and that we could be free of an infinitude of maladies both of body and mind, and even also possibly of the infirmities of age, if we had sufficient knowledge of their causes, and of all the remedies with which nature has provided us. ~ Rene Descartes

In order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn than to contemplate. ~ Rene Descartes