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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
Philosopher
Physicist
La Haye en Touraine
Descartes
Cartesius
Renatus Cartesius
Universe
Give
Giving
Construct
Extension
Constructs
Extensions
Motion
Math

More quotes by Rene Descartes

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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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With me, everything turns into mathematics.
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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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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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And thereby make ourselves, as it were, the lords and masters of nature.
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Illusory joy is often worth more than genuine sorrow.
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And I shall always hold myself more obliged to those by whose favour I enjoy uninterrupted leisure than to any who might offer me the most honourable positions in the world.
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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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Divide each difficulty at hand into as many pieces as possible and as could be required to better solve them.
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In order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn, than to contemplate.
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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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The chief cause of human errors is to be found in the prejudices picked up in childhood.
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Thus each truth discovered was a rule available in the discovery of subsequent ones.
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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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Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the self-same well from which your laughter rises was often-times filled with your tears.
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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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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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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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Instead I ought to be grateful to Him who never owed me anything for having been so generous to me, rather than think that He deprived me of those things or has taken away from me whatever He did not give me.
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How can you be certain that your whole life is not a dream?
Rene Descartes