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I was convinced that our beliefs are based much more on custom and example than on any certain knowledge.

Rene Descartes

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Rene Descartes
Age: 53 †
Born: 1596
Born: March 31
Died: 1650
Died: February 11
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I know that I exist the question is, What is this 'I' that 'I' know.
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Illusory joy is often worth more than genuine sorrow.
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If ... it is not in my power to arrive at the knowledge of any truth, I may at least do what is in my power, namely, suspend judgement.
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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.
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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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Mathematics is a more powerful instrument of knowledge than any other that has been bequeathed to us by human agency.
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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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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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In order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn, than to contemplate.
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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.
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But possibly I am something more than I suppose myself to be.
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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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Doubt is the origin of wisdom
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We do not describe the world we see, we see the world we can describe.
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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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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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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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Conquer yourself rather than the world.
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Nothing comes out of nothing.
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Let whoever can do so deceive me, he will never bring it about that I am nothing, so long as I continue to think I am something.
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