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In God there is an infinitude of things which I cannot comprehend, nor possibly even reach in any way by thought for it is the nature of the infinite that my nature, which is finite and limited, should not comprehend it.

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
Thought
Comprehend
Even
Finite
Way
Limited
Things
Possibly
Reach
Infinite
Nature
Cannot
Infinitude

More quotes by Rene Descartes

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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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It is possible that I am dreaming right now and that all of my perceptions are false.
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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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It is to the body alone that we should attribute everything that can be observed in us to oppose our reason.
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I know that I exist the question is, What is this 'I' that 'I' know.
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Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power.
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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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Variant: When it is not in our power to follow what is true, we ought to follow what is most probable.
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I accept no principles of physics which are not also accepted in mathematics.
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If I found any new truths in the sciences, I can say that they follow from, or depend on, five or six principal problems which I succeeded in solving and which I regard as so many battles where the fortunes of war were on my side.
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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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A person has two passions for love and abhorrence. A big disposition to excessiveness has just a love, because it is more ardent and stronger.
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There is a difference between happiness, the supreme good, and the final end or goal toward which our actions ought to tend. For happiness is not the supreme good, but presupposes it, being the contentment or satisfaction of the mind which results from possessing it.
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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.
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If I simply refrain from making a judgment in cases where I do not perceive the truth with sufficient clarity and distinctness, then it is clear that I am behaving correctly and avoiding error.
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Science is practical philosophy.
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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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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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De omnibus dubitandum
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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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