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If I go for the alternative which is false, then obviously I shall be in error if I take the other side, then it is by... chance that I arrive at the truth, and I shall still be at fault.... In this incorrect use of free will may be found the privation which constitutes the essence of error.

Rene Descartes

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Rene Descartes
Age: 53 †
Born: 1596
Born: March 31
Died: 1650
Died: February 11
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Wonder is the first of all the passions.
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The principal effect of the passions is that they incite and persuade the mind to will the events for which they prepared the body.
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... 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.
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How can you be certain that your whole life is not a dream?
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Illusory joy is often worth more than genuine sorrow.
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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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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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It is possible that I am dreaming right now and that all of my perceptions are false.
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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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There is a little gland in the brain in which the soul exercises its functions in a more particular way than in the other parts.
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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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The only secure knowledge is that I exist.
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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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...it is certain that I am really distinct from my body, and can exist without it.
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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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A state is better governed which has few laws, and those laws strictly observed.
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I accept no principles of physics which are not also accepted in mathematics.
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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.
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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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Travelling is almost like talking with those of other centuries.
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