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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.

Rene Descartes

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Rene Descartes
Age: 53 †
Born: 1596
Born: March 31
Died: 1650
Died: February 11
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La Haye en Touraine
Descartes
Cartesius
Renatus Cartesius
Explain
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Consider
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Able
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Nothing
Unable
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Physics

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Nothing comes out of nothing.
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Illusory joy is often worth more than genuine sorrow.
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Each problem that I solved became a rule, which served afterwards to solve other problems.
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Conquer yourself rather than the world.
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Omnia apud me mathematica fiunt.
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Science is practical philosophy.
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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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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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Mathematics is a more powerful instrument of knowledge than any other that has been bequeathed to us by human agency.
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There is nothing more ancient than the truth.
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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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On the one hand I have a clear and distinct idea of myself, in so far as I am a thinking, non-extended thing and on the other hand I have a distinct idea of body, in so far a this is simply an extended, non-thinking thing. And, accordingly, it is certain that I am really distinct from my body, and exist without it.
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In order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn, than to contemplate.
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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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A state is better governed which has few laws, and those laws strictly observed.
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He lives well who is well hidden.
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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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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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God alone is the author of all the motions in the world.
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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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