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We call infinite that thing whose limits we have not perceived, and so by that word we do not signify what we understand about a thing, but rather what we do not understand.

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
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More quotes by Rene Descartes

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There is nothing more ancient than the truth.
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I can doubt everything, except one thing, and that is the very fact that I doubt. Simply put - I think, therefore I am
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God alone is the author of all the motions in the world.
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If I simply refrain from making a judgment in cases where I do not perceive the truth with sufficient clarity and distinctness, then it is clear that I am behaving correctly and avoiding error.
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...it is certain that I am really distinct from my body, and can exist without it.
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And thereby make ourselves, as it were, the lords and masters of nature.
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There is a great difference between mind and body insomuch as body is by nature always divisible, and the mind is entirely indivisible.
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It is possible that I am dreaming right now and that all of my perceptions are false.
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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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There is a difference between happiness, the supreme good, and the final end or goal toward which our actions ought to tend. For happiness is not the supreme good, but presupposes it, being the contentment or satisfaction of the mind which results from possessing it.
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A state is better governed which has few laws, and those laws strictly observed.
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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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For I found myself embarrassed with so many doubts and errors that it seemed to me that the effort to instruct myself had no effect other than th eincreasing discovery of my own ignorance
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Omnia apud me mathematica fiunt.
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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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And I shall always hold myself more obliged to those by whose favour I enjoy uninterrupted leisure than to any who might offer me the most honourable positions in the world.
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He lives well who is well hidden.
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With me, everything turns into mathematics.
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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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Even if I were to suppose that I was dreaming and whatever I saw or imagined was false, yet I could not deny that ideas were truly in my mind.
Rene Descartes