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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?

Rene Descartes

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Rene Descartes
Age: 53 †
Born: 1596
Born: March 31
Died: 1650
Died: February 11
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Thus each truth discovered was a rule available in the discovery of subsequent ones.
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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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I accept no principles of physics which are not also accepted in mathematics.
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Perfect numbers like perfect men are very rare.
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In order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn, than to contemplate.
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And thereby make ourselves, as it were, the lords and masters of nature.
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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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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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The only thing we have power over in the universe is our own thoughts.
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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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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.
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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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I am accustomed to sleep and in my dreams to imagine the same things that lunatics imagine when awake.
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It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well.
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Reason is nothing without imagination.
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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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