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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.

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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Military Personnel
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Musicologist
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La Haye en Touraine
Descartes
Cartesius
Renatus Cartesius
Making
Clarity
Truth
Perceive
Sufficient
Distinctness
Errors
Behaving
Judgment
Correctly
Cases
Refrain
Simply
Avoiding
Clear
Error

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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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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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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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He lives well who is well hidden.
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The chief cause of human errors is to be found in the prejudices picked up in childhood.
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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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Thus each truth discovered was a rule available in the discovery of subsequent ones.
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Everything is self-evident.
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De omnibus dubitandum
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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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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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I am thing that thinks: that is, a things that doubts,affirms, denies, understands a few things, is ignorant of many things, is willing, is unwilling, and also which imagines and has sensory perceptions.
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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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Intuitive knowledge is an illumination of the soul, whereby it beholds in the light of God those things which it pleases Him to reveal to us by a direct impression of divine clearness.
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I accept no principles of physics which are not also accepted in mathematics.
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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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It is possible that I am dreaming right now and that all of my perceptions are false.
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The only secure knowledge is that I exist.
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I know that I exist the question is, What is this 'I' that 'I' know.
Rene Descartes