Quote

Even those who have the weakest souls could acquire absolute mastery over all their passions if we employed sufficient ingenuity in training and guiding them.

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
Training
Employed
Passion
Mastery
Passions
Body
Acquire
Soul
Sufficient
Even
Absolutes
Weakest
Absolute
Guiding
Souls
Ingenuity

More quotes by 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
[About Pierre de Fermat] It cannot be denied that he has had many exceptional ideas, and that he is a highly intelligent man. For my part, however, I have always been taught to take a broad overview of things, in order to be able to deduce from them general rules, which might be applicable elsewhere.
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
Intuitive knowledge is an illumination of the soul, whereby it beholds in the light of God those things which it pleases Him to reveal to us by a direct impression of divine clearness.
Rene Descartes
Image
Everybody thinks himself so well supplied with common sense that even those most difficult to please. . . never desire more of it than they already have.
Rene Descartes
Image
There is a little gland in the brain in which the soul exercises its functions in a more particular way than in the other parts.
Rene Descartes
Image
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.
Rene Descartes
Image
Illusory joy is often worth more than genuine sorrow.
Rene Descartes
Image
Situations in life often permit no delay and when we cannot determine the course which is certainly best, we must follow the one which is probably the best. This frame of mind freed me also from the repentance and remorse commonly felt by those vacillating individuals who are always seeking as worthwhile things which they later judge to be bad.
Rene Descartes
Image
I accept no principles of physics which are not also accepted in mathematics.
Rene Descartes
Image
It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well.
Rene Descartes
Image
Omnia apud me mathematica fiunt.
Rene Descartes
Image
How can you be certain that your whole life is not a dream?
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
Reason is nothing without imagination.
Rene Descartes
Image
I hope that posterity will judge me kindly, not only as to the things which I have explained, but also to those which I have intentionally omitted so as to leave to others the pleasure of discovery.
Rene Descartes
Image
Travelling is almost like talking with those of other centuries.
Rene Descartes
Image
The only thing we have power over in the universe is our own thoughts.
Rene Descartes
Image
We never understand a thing so well,and make it our own, as when we have discovered it for ourselves.
Rene Descartes
Image
The rainbow is such a remarkable phenomenon of nature, and its cause has been so meticulously sought after by inquiring minds throughout the ages, that I could not choose a more appropriate subject for demonstrating how, with the method I am using, we can arrive at knowledge not possessed at all by those whose writings are available to us.
Rene Descartes