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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.

Rene Descartes

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Rene Descartes
Age: 53 †
Born: 1596
Born: March 31
Died: 1650
Died: February 11
Astronomer
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Mathematician
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La Haye en Touraine
Descartes
Cartesius
Renatus Cartesius
Imagine
Doubts
Also
Understands
Many
Ignorant
Affirms
Deny
Imagines
Thing
Thinks
Denies
Things
Perception
Sensory
Thinking
Willing
Perceptions
Life
Doubt
Unwilling

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I accept no principles of physics which are not also accepted in mathematics.
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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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We never understand a thing so well,and make it our own, as when we have discovered it for ourselves.
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Few look for truth many prowl about for a reputation of profundity by arrogantly challenging whichever arguments are the best.
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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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... 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.
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It's the familiar love-hate syndrome of seduction: I don't really care what it is I say, I care only that you like it.
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The principal effect of the passions is that they incite and persuade the mind to will the events for which they prepared the body.
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It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well.
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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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A state is better governed which has few laws, and those laws strictly observed.
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...it is certain that I am really distinct from my body, and can exist without it.
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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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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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Reason is nothing without imagination.
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Illusory joy is often worth more than genuine sorrow.
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He lives well who is well hidden.
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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.
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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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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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