Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Explain
Otherwise
Consider
Science
Able
Might
Demonstrate
Nothing
Unable
Things
Physics

More quotes by Rene Descartes

Image
The reading of all good books is indeed like a conversation with the noblest men of past centuries who were the authors of them, nay a carefully studied conversation, in which they reveal to us none but the best of their thoughts.
Rene Descartes
Image
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.
Rene Descartes
Image
Each problem that I solved became a rule, which served afterwards to solve other problems.
Rene Descartes
Image
Doubt is the origin of wisdom
Rene Descartes
Image
Sensations are nothing but confused modes of thinking.
Rene Descartes
Image
It's the familiar love-hate syndrome of seduction: I don't really care what it is I say, I care only that you like it.
Rene Descartes
Image
With me, everything turns into mathematics.
Rene Descartes
Image
Mathematics is a more powerful instrument of knowledge than any other that has been bequeathed to us by human agency.
Rene Descartes
Image
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.
Rene Descartes
Image
De omnibus dubitandum
Rene Descartes
Image
It is to the body alone that we should attribute everything that can be observed in us to oppose our reason.
Rene Descartes
Image
I am thing that thinks: that is, a things that doubts,affirms, denies, understands a few things, is ignorant of many things, is willing, is unwilling, and also which imagines and has sensory perceptions.
Rene Descartes
Image
Variant: When it is not in our power to follow what is true, we ought to follow what is most probable.
Rene Descartes
Image
The two operations of our understanding, intuition and deduction, on which alone we have said we must rely in the acquisition of knowledge.
Rene Descartes
Image
... 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.
Rene Descartes
Image
Everything is self-evident.
Rene Descartes
Image
There is a great difference between mind and body insomuch as body is by nature always divisible, and the mind is entirely indivisible.
Rene Descartes
Image
He lives well who is well hidden.
Rene Descartes
Image
It is possible that I am dreaming right now and that all of my perceptions are false.
Rene Descartes
Image
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