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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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Rene Descartes
Age: 53 †
Born: 1596
Born: March 31
Died: 1650
Died: February 11
Astronomer
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Mathematician
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La Haye en Touraine
Descartes
Cartesius
Renatus Cartesius
Possible
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Right
Perceptions
Dreaming
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Perception

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It's the familiar love-hate syndrome of seduction: I don't really care what it is I say, I care only that you like it.
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There is a difference between happiness, the supreme good, and the final end or goal toward which our actions ought to tend. For happiness is not the supreme good, but presupposes it, being the contentment or satisfaction of the mind which results from possessing it.
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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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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 know that I exist the question is, What is this 'I' that 'I' know.
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Here I beg you to observe in passing that the scruples that prevented ancient writers from using arithmetical terms in geometry, and which can only be a consequence of their inability to perceive clearly the relation between these two subjects, introduced much obscurity and confusion into their explanations.
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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.
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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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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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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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And I shall always hold myself more obliged to those by whose favour I enjoy uninterrupted leisure than to any who might offer me the most honourable positions in the world.
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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.
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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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There is nothing more ancient than the truth.
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A state is better governed which has few laws, and those laws strictly observed.
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I experienced in myself a certain capacity for judging which I have doubtless received from God, like all the other things that I possess and as He could not desire to deceive me, it is clear that He has not given me a faculty that will lead me to err if I use it aright.
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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.
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I was convinced that our beliefs are based much more on custom and example than on any certain knowledge.
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Each problem that I solved became a rule, which served afterwards to solve other problems.
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