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When I consider this carefully, I find not a single property which with certainty separates the waking state from the dream. How can you be certain that your whole life is not a dream?

Rene Descartes

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Rene Descartes
Age: 53 †
Born: 1596
Born: March 31
Died: 1650
Died: February 11
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More quotes by Rene Descartes

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God alone is the author of all the motions in the world.
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We do not describe the world we see, we see the world we can describe.
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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 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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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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I was convinced that our beliefs are based much more on custom and example than on any certain knowledge.
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Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power.
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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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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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The chief cause of human errors is to be found in the prejudices picked up in childhood.
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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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For I found myself embarrassed with so many doubts and errors that it seemed to me that the effort to instruct myself had no effect other than th eincreasing discovery of my own ignorance
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Illusory joy is often worth more than genuine sorrow.
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I am accustomed to sleep and in my dreams to imagine the same things that lunatics imagine when awake.
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Whenever anyone has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that the offense cannot reach it.
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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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Intuition is the undoubting conception of a pure and attentive mind, which arises from the light of reason alone, and is more certain than deduction.
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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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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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Science is practical philosophy.
Rene Descartes