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I know that I exist the question is, What is this 'I' that 'I' know.

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
Exist
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More quotes by Rene Descartes

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How do we know that anything really exists, that anything is really the way it seems ot us through our senses?
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Omnia apud me mathematica fiunt.
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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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... 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.
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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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God alone is the author of all the motions in the world.
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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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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.
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The only thing we have power over in the universe is our own thoughts.
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In order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn, than to contemplate.
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The greatest minds, as they are capable of the highest excellencies, are open likewise to the greatest aberrations and those who travel very slowly may yet make far greater progress, provided they keep always to the straight road, than those who, while they run, forsake it.
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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.
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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.
Rene Descartes
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Just as we believe by faith that the greatest happiness of the next life consists simply in the contemplation of this divine majesty, likewise we experience that we derive the greatest joy of which we are capable in this life from the same contemplation, even though it is much less perfect.
Rene Descartes
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Doubt is the origin of wisdom
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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.
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The chief cause of human errors is to be found in the prejudices picked up in childhood.
Rene Descartes
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Travelling is almost like talking with those of other centuries.
Rene Descartes
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This result could have been achieved either by his [God] endowing my intellect with a clear and distinct perception of everything about which I would ever deliberate, or simply by impressing the following rule so firmly upon my memory that I could never forget it: I should never judge anything that I do not clearly and distinctly understand.
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Science is practical philosophy.
Rene Descartes