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In order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn, than to contemplate.
Rene Descartes
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Rene Descartes
Age: 53 †
Born: 1596
Born: March 31
Died: 1650
Died: February 11
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More quotes by Rene Descartes
Common sense is the best distributed thing in the world, for we all think we possess a good share of it.
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
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
The only thing we have power over in the universe is our own thoughts.
Rene Descartes
I am accustomed to sleep and in my dreams to imagine the same things that lunatics imagine when awake.
Rene Descartes
Everybody thinks himself so well supplied with common sense that even those most difficult to please. . . never desire more of it than they already have.
Rene Descartes
It is possible that I am dreaming right now and that all of my perceptions are false.
Rene Descartes
Illusory joy is often worth more than genuine sorrow.
Rene Descartes
When I consider this carefully, I find not a single property which with certainty separates the waking state from the dream. How can you be certain that your whole life is not a dream?
Rene Descartes
Variant: When it is not in our power to follow what is true, we ought to follow what is most probable.
Rene Descartes
In the matter of a difficult question it is more likely that the truth should have been discovered by the few than by the many.
Rene Descartes
It is contrary to reasoning to say that there is a vacuum or space in which there is absolutely nothing.
Rene Descartes
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.
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
How do we know that anything really exists, that anything is really the way it seems ot us through our senses?
Rene Descartes
[About Pierre de Fermat] It cannot be denied that he has had many exceptional ideas, and that he is a highly intelligent man. For my part, however, I have always been taught to take a broad overview of things, in order to be able to deduce from them general rules, which might be applicable elsewhere.
Rene Descartes
Science is practical philosophy.
Rene Descartes
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.
Rene Descartes
How can you be certain that your whole life is not a dream?
Rene Descartes
Divide each difficulty at hand into as many pieces as possible and as could be required to better solve them.
Rene Descartes
