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Neither the true nor the false roots are always real sometimes they are imaginary that is, while we can always imagine as many roots for each equation as I have assigned, yet there is not always a definite quantity corresponding to each root we have imagined.

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
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With me, everything turns into mathematics.
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God alone is the author of all the motions in the world.
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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.
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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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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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He who hid well, lived well.
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[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.
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Conquer yourself rather than the world.
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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.
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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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We do not describe the world we see, we see the world we can describe.
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How can you be certain that your whole life is not a dream?
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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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There is nothing more ancient than the truth.
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In order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn, than to contemplate.
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He lives well who is well hidden.
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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.
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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?
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Reason is nothing without imagination.
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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.
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