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

Rene Descartes

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Rene Descartes
Age: 53 †
Born: 1596
Born: March 31
Died: 1650
Died: February 11
Astronomer
Correspondent
Mathematician
Mechanical Automaton Engineer
Military Personnel
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La Haye en Touraine
Descartes
Cartesius
Renatus Cartesius
Aries
Absolutely
Except
Thoughts
Power
Nothing
Thinking

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And I shall always hold myself more obliged to those by whose favour I enjoy uninterrupted leisure than to any who might offer me the most honourable positions in the world.
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So blind is the curiosity by which mortals are possessed, that they often conduct their minds along unexplored routes, having no reason to hope for success, but merely being willing to risk the experiment of finding whether the truth they seek lies there.
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I can doubt everything, except one thing, and that is the very fact that I doubt. Simply put - I think, therefore I am
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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.
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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.
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I accept no principles of physics which are not also accepted in mathematics.
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A state is better governed which has few laws, and those laws strictly observed.
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Travelling is almost like talking with those of other centuries.
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Sensations are nothing but confused modes of thinking.
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Doubt is the origin of wisdom
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Conquer yourself rather than the world.
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If ... it is not in my power to arrive at the knowledge of any truth, I may at least do what is in my power, namely, suspend judgement.
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For how do we know that the thoughts which occur in dreaming are false rather than those others which we experience when awake, since the former are often not less vivid and distinct than the latter?
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How do we know that anything really exists, that anything is really the way it seems ot us through our senses?
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Whenever anyone has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that the offense cannot reach it.
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I hope that posterity will judge me kindly, not only as to the things which I have explained, but also to those which I have intentionally omitted so as to leave to others the pleasure of discovery.
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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.
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Even if I were to suppose that I was dreaming and whatever I saw or imagined was false, yet I could not deny that ideas were truly in my mind.
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Just as we believe by faith that the greatest happiness of the next life consists simply in the contemplation of this divine majesty, likewise we experience that we derive the greatest joy of which we are capable in this life from the same contemplation, even though it is much less perfect.
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We never understand a thing so well,and make it our own, as when we have discovered it for ourselves.
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