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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
Astronomer
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Mathematician
Mechanical Automaton Engineer
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La Haye en Touraine
Descartes
Cartesius
Renatus Cartesius
Exist
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Knowledge

More quotes by Rene Descartes

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Intuition is the undoubting conception of a pure and attentive mind, which arises from the light of reason alone, and is more certain than deduction.
Rene Descartes
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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.
Rene Descartes
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How can you be certain that your whole life is not a dream?
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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.
Rene Descartes
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Illusory joy is often worth more than genuine sorrow.
Rene Descartes
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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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The two operations of our understanding, intuition and deduction, on which alone we have said we must rely in the acquisition of knowledge.
Rene Descartes
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Sensations are nothing but confused modes of thinking.
Rene Descartes
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It is to the body alone that we should attribute everything that can be observed in us to oppose our reason.
Rene Descartes
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It is possible that I am dreaming right now and that all of my perceptions are false.
Rene Descartes
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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.
Rene Descartes
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Reason is nothing without imagination.
Rene Descartes
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He lives well who is well hidden.
Rene Descartes
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Everything is self-evident.
Rene Descartes
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A person has two passions for love and abhorrence. A big disposition to excessiveness has just a love, because it is more ardent and stronger.
Rene Descartes
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The only secure knowledge is that I exist.
Rene Descartes
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I accept no principles of physics which are not also accepted in mathematics.
Rene Descartes
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With me, everything turns into mathematics.
Rene Descartes
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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
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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