Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Rene Descartes
Age: 53 †
Born: 1596
Born: March 31
Died: 1650
Died: February 11
Astronomer
Correspondent
Mathematician
Mechanical Automaton Engineer
Military Personnel
Music Theorist
Musicologist
Philosopher
Physicist
La Haye en Touraine
Descartes
Cartesius
Renatus Cartesius
Dream
False
Thoughts
Distinct
Since
Vivid
Rather
Dreaming
Less
Occur
Often
Latter
Experience
Awake
Others
Former

More quotes by Rene Descartes

Image
God alone is the author of all the motions in the world.
Rene Descartes
Image
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
Rene Descartes
Image
It is to the body alone that we should attribute everything that can be observed in us to oppose our reason.
Rene Descartes
Image
The chief cause of human errors is to be found in the prejudices picked up in childhood.
Rene Descartes
Image
The only thing we have power over in the universe is our own thoughts.
Rene Descartes
Image
Hence reason also demands that, since our thoughts cannot all be true because we are not wholly perfect, what truth they do possess must inevitably be found in the thoughts we have when awake, rather than in our dreams.
Rene Descartes
Image
But possibly I am something more than I suppose myself to be.
Rene Descartes
Image
Omnia apud me mathematica fiunt.
Rene Descartes
Image
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
Image
Sensations are nothing but confused modes of thinking.
Rene Descartes
Image
... 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
Image
He lives well who is well hidden.
Rene Descartes
Image
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
Image
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.
Rene Descartes
Image
Situations in life often permit no delay and when we cannot determine the course which is certainly best, we must follow the one which is probably the best. This frame of mind freed me also from the repentance and remorse commonly felt by those vacillating individuals who are always seeking as worthwhile things which they later judge to be bad.
Rene Descartes
Image
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.
Rene Descartes
Image
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.
Rene Descartes
Image
We never understand a thing so well,and make it our own, as when we have discovered it for ourselves.
Rene Descartes
Image
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
Image
Thus each truth discovered was a rule available in the discovery of subsequent ones.
Rene Descartes