Quote

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.

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
Knowledge
Truth
Power
Suspend
May
Namely
Arrive
Judgement
Judgment
Least

More quotes by Rene Descartes

Image
I can doubt everything, except one thing, and that is the very fact that I doubt. Simply put - I think, therefore I am
Rene Descartes
Image
It is possible that I am dreaming right now and that all of my perceptions are false.
Rene Descartes
Image
If I go for the alternative which is false, then obviously I shall be in error if I take the other side, then it is by... chance that I arrive at the truth, and I shall still be at fault.... In this incorrect use of free will may be found the privation which constitutes the essence of error.
Rene Descartes
Image
He lives well who is well hidden.
Rene Descartes
Image
A state is better governed which has few laws, and those laws strictly observed.
Rene Descartes
Image
...it is certain that I am really distinct from my body, and can exist without it.
Rene Descartes
Image
In order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn, than to contemplate.
Rene Descartes
Image
In God there is an infinitude of things which I cannot comprehend, nor possibly even reach in any way by thought for it is the nature of the infinite that my nature, which is finite and limited, should not comprehend it.
Rene Descartes
Image
Everything is self-evident.
Rene Descartes
Image
And thereby make ourselves, as it were, the lords and masters of nature.
Rene Descartes
Image
But possibly I am something more than I suppose myself to be.
Rene Descartes
Image
God alone is the author of all the motions in the world.
Rene Descartes
Image
Divide each difficulty at hand into as many pieces as possible and as could be required to better solve them.
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
If I found any new truths in the sciences, I can say that they follow from, or depend on, five or six principal problems which I succeeded in solving and which I regard as so many battles where the fortunes of war were on my side.
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
Few look for truth many prowl about for a reputation of profundity by arrogantly challenging whichever arguments are the best.
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
In the matter of a difficult question it is more likely that the truth should have been discovered by the few than by the many.
Rene Descartes
Image
Conquer yourself rather than the world.
Rene Descartes