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There is nothing more ancient than the truth.

Rene Descartes

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Rene Descartes
Age: 53 †
Born: 1596
Born: March 31
Died: 1650
Died: February 11
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There is a great difference between mind and body insomuch as body is by nature always divisible, and the mind is entirely indivisible.
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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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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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We do not describe the world we see, we see the world we can describe.
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Here I beg you to observe in passing that the scruples that prevented ancient writers from using arithmetical terms in geometry, and which can only be a consequence of their inability to perceive clearly the relation between these two subjects, introduced much obscurity and confusion into their explanations.
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Mathematics is a more powerful instrument of knowledge than any other that has been bequeathed to us by human agency.
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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.
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The greatest minds, as they are capable of the highest excellencies, are open likewise to the greatest aberrations and those who travel very slowly may yet make far greater progress, provided they keep always to the straight road, than those who, while they run, forsake it.
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God alone is the author of all the motions in the world.
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De omnibus dubitandum
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It is contrary to reasoning to say that there is a vacuum or space in which there is absolutely nothing.
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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.
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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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[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.
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I am thing that thinks: that is, a things that doubts,affirms, denies, understands a few things, is ignorant of many things, is willing, is unwilling, and also which imagines and has sensory perceptions.
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Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power.
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...it is certain that I am really distinct from my body, and can exist without it.
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The chief cause of human errors is to be found in the prejudices picked up in childhood.
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Omnia apud me mathematica fiunt.
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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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