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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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La Haye en Touraine
Descartes
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Renatus Cartesius
Atheism
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More quotes by Rene Descartes

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Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the self-same well from which your laughter rises was often-times filled with your tears.
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De omnibus dubitandum
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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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Conquer yourself rather than the world.
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Sensations are nothing but confused modes of thinking.
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For how do we know that the thoughts which occur in dreaming are false rather than those others which we experience when awake, since the former are often not less vivid and distinct than the latter?
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I accept no principles of physics which are not also accepted in mathematics.
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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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He who hid well, lived well.
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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.
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Variant: When it is not in our power to follow what is true, we ought to follow what is most probable.
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We do not describe the world we see, we see the world we can describe.
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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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Omnia apud me mathematica fiunt.
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A state is better governed which has few laws, and those laws strictly observed.
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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.
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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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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.
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It is contrary to reasoning to say that there is a vacuum or space in which there is absolutely nothing.
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The only thing we have power over in the universe is our own thoughts.
Rene Descartes