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Give me extension and motion and I will construct the universe.

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
Music Theorist
Musicologist
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La Haye en Touraine
Descartes
Cartesius
Renatus Cartesius
Constructs
Extensions
Motion
Math
Universe
Give
Giving
Construct
Extension

More quotes by Rene Descartes

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We do not describe the world we see, we see the world we can describe.
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But possibly I am something more than I suppose myself to be.
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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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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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...it is certain that I am really distinct from my body, and can exist without it.
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If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.
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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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Omnia apud me mathematica fiunt.
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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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We never understand a thing so well,and make it our own, as when we have discovered it for ourselves.
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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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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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The principal effect of the passions is that they incite and persuade the mind to will the events for which they prepared the body.
Rene Descartes
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How do we know that anything really exists, that anything is really the way it seems ot us through our senses?
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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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I was convinced that our beliefs are based much more on custom and example than on any certain knowledge.
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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.
Rene Descartes
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Travelling is almost like talking with those of other centuries.
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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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How can you be certain that your whole life is not a dream?
Rene Descartes