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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.

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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La Haye en Touraine
Descartes
Cartesius
Renatus Cartesius
Life
Less
Consists
Perfect
Capable
Faith
Divine
Experience
Joy
Derive
Next
Simply
Likewise
Even
Greatest
Much
Though
Majesty
Believe
Happiness
Contemplation

More quotes by Rene Descartes

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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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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 never understand a thing so well,and make it our own, as when we have discovered it for ourselves.
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God alone is the author of all the motions 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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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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Common sense is the best distributed thing in the world, for we all think we possess a good share of it.
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How can you be certain that your whole life is not a dream?
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I should consider that I know nothing about physics if I were able to explain only how things might be, and were unable to demonstrate that they could not be otherwise.
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Sensations are nothing but confused modes of thinking.
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Divide each difficulty at hand into as many pieces as possible and as could be required to better solve them.
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The two operations of our understanding, intuition and deduction, on which alone we have said we must rely in the acquisition of knowledge.
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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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This result could have been achieved either by his [God] endowing my intellect with a clear and distinct perception of everything about which I would ever deliberate, or simply by impressing the following rule so firmly upon my memory that I could never forget it: I should never judge anything that I do not clearly and distinctly understand.
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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.
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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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Few look for truth many prowl about for a reputation of profundity by arrogantly challenging whichever arguments are the best.
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Conquer yourself rather than the world.
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I suppose therefore that all things I see are illusions I believe that nothing has ever existed of everything my lying memory tells me. I think I have no senses. I believe that body, shape, extension, motion, location are functions. What is there then that can be taken as true? Perhaps only this one thing, that nothing at all is certain.
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He who hid well, lived well.
Rene Descartes