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That the grace of fable stirs the mind" ... and ... "that the perusal of excellent books is, as it were, to interview with the noblest men of past ages -- Rene Descartes
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It is prudent never to trust those who have deceived us, even if only once. -- Rene Descartes
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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. -- Rene Descartes
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To live without philosophizing is in truth the same as keeping the eyes closed without attempting to open them. -- Rene Descartes
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[I]t seems to be just as foolish to say, 'I imagine, in order to understand more clearly what I am,' as to say, 'I am now clearly awake and I see something true, but because I do not yet see it clearly enough I shall fall asleep so that my dreams will represent it to me more truly and clearly. -- Rene Descartes
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It is a mark of prudence never to place our complete trust in those who have deceived us even once. -- Rene Descartes
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Human wisdom remains always one and the same although applied to the most diverse objects and it is no more changed by their diversity than the sunshine is changed by the variety of objects which it illuminates. -- Rene Descartes
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The chief cause of human errors is to be found in the prejudices picked up in childhood. -- Rene Descartes
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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. -- Rene Descartes
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That the reading of good books, is like the conversation with the honestest persons of the past age, who were the Authors of them, and even a studyed conversation, wherein they discover to us the best only of their thoughts. That eloquence hath forces & beauties which are incomparable. -- Rene Descartes
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We never understand a thing so well,and make it our own, as when we have discovered it for ourselves. -- Rene Descartes
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So that there resulted a chaos as disordered as the poets ever feigned, -- Rene Descartes
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The will determines itself; it should not be described as blind, any more than vision should be described as deaf. -- Rene Descartes
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So blind is the curiosity by which mortals are possessed, that they often conduct their minds along unexplored routes, having no reason to hope for success, but merely being willing to risk the experiment of finding whether the truth they seek lies there. -- Rene Descartes
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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. -- Rene Descartes
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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. -- Rene Descartes
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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. -- Rene Descartes
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Whenever anyone has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that the offense cannot reach it. -- Rene Descartes
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To know what people really think, pay attention to what they do, rather than what they say. -- Rene Descartes
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I had become aware, as early as my college days, that no opinion, however absurd and incredible can be imagined, that has not been held by one of the philosophers. -- Rene Descartes
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He lives well who is well hidden. -- Rene Descartes
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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 the increasing discovery of my own ignorance -- Rene Descartes
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Am I so tied to a body and senses that I am incapable of existing without them? -- Rene Descartes
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I must finally conclude that this proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind. -- Rene Descartes
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Now therefore, that my mind is free from all cares, and that I have obtained for myself assured leisure in peaceful solitude, I shall apply myself seriously and freely to the general destruction of all my former opinions. -- Rene Descartes
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If I found any new truths in the sciences, I can say that they follow from, or depend on, five or six principal problems which I succeeded in solving and which I regard as so many battles where the fortunes of war were on my side. -- Rene Descartes
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Conquer yourself rather than the world. -- Rene Descartes
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But, because I had already very clearly recognized in myself that the intelligent nature is distinct from the corporeal, -- Rene Descartes
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Give me extension and motion and I will construct the universe. -- Rene Descartes
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If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things. -- Rene Descartes
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But in my opinion, all things in nature occur mathematically. -- Rene Descartes
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Sensations are nothing but confused modes of thinking. -- Rene Descartes
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And even though we have read all the arguments of Plato and Aristotle, we shall never become philosophers if we are unable to make a sound judgement on matters which come up for discussion; in this case what we would seem to have learnt would not be science but history. -- Rene Descartes
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Every man is indeed bound to do what he can to promote the good of others, and a man who is of no use to anyone is strictly worthless. -- Rene Descartes
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Reading good books is like engaging in conversation with the most cultivated minds of past centuries who had composed them, or rather, taking part in a well-conducted dialogue in which such minds reveal to us only the best of their thoughts. -- Rene Descartes
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And, in fine, of false sciences I thought I knew the worth sufficiently to escape being deceived by the professions of an alchemist, the predictions of an astrologer, the impostures of a magician, or by the artifices and boasting of any of those who profess to know things of which they are ignorant. -- Rene Descartes
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Gratitude is a species of love, excited in us by some action of the person for whom we have it, and by which we believe that he has done some good to us, or at least that he has had the intention of doing so.

Passions, III, 193. XI, 473-474. Trans. John Morris -- Rene Descartes
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The first was never to accept anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such; that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitancy and prejudice, and to comprise nothing more in my judgment than what was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly as to exclude all ground of doubt. -- Rene Descartes
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The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues. -- Rene Descartes
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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 ... -- Rene Descartes
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But possibly I am something more than I suppose myself to be. -- Rene Descartes
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to live well you must live
unseen -- Rene Descartes
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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. -- Rene Descartes
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And thus, the actions of life often not allowing any delay, it is a truth very certain that, when it is not in our power to determine the most true opinions we ought to follow the most probable. -- Rene Descartes
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Dubium sapientiae initium. (Doubt is the origin of wisdom.) -- Rene Descartes
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I did not imitate the skeptics who doubt only for doubting's sake, and pretend to be always undecided; on the contrary, my whole intention was to arrive at a certainty, and to dig away the drift and the sand until I reached the rock or the clay beneath. -- Rene Descartes
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For 'tis not enough to have good faculties, but the principal is, to apply them well. -- Rene Descartes
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Even those who have the weakest souls could acquire absolute mastery over all their passions if we employed sufficient ingenuity in training and guiding them. -- Rene Descartes
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The last rule was to make enumerations so complete, and reviews so comprehensive, that I should be certain of omitting nothing. -- Rene Descartes
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And as it is the most generous souls who have most gratitude, it is those who have most pride, and who are most base and infirm, who most allow themselves to be carried away by anger and hatred. -- Rene Descartes
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The dreams we imagine when we are asleep should not in any way make us doubt the truth of the thoughts we have when we are awake. -- Rene Descartes
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Certainly no one can deny that we have such an idea of God in ourselves unless they think that there is no knowledge at all of God in human minds. -- Rene Descartes
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The mind effortlessly and automatically takes in new ideas, which remain in limbo until verified or rejected by conscious, rational analysis. -- Rene Descartes
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I accept no principles of physics which are not also accepted in mathematics. -- Rene Descartes
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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. -- Rene Descartes
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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. -- Rene Descartes
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Thought I had said enough respecting them to show that there is nothing observable in the heavens or stars of our system that must not, or at least may not appear precisely alike in those of the system which I described. -- Rene Descartes
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In God there is an infinitude of things which I cannot comprehend, nor possibly even reach in any way by thought; for it is the nature of the infinite that my nature, which is finite and limited, should not comprehend it. -- Rene Descartes
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It is good to know something of the customs of different people in order to judge more soundly of our own, and so that we might not think that all that which is contrary to our own ways be ridiculous and contrary to reason, as those who have seen nothing have the habit of doing. -- Rene Descartes
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Booty Butt, Booty Butt, Booty Butt Cheeks -- Rene Descartes
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Travelling is almost like talking with those of other centuries. -- Rene Descartes
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I desire to live in peace and to continue the life I have begun under the motto 'to live well you must live unseen -- Rene Descartes
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The entire method consists in the order and arrangement of the things to which the mind's eye must turn so that we can discover some truth. -- Rene Descartes
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So far, I have been a spectator in this theatre which is the world, but I am now about to mount the stage, and I come forward masked. -- Rene Descartes
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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. -- Rene Descartes
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A person has two passions for love and abhorrence. A big disposition to excessiveness has just a love, because it is more ardent and stronger. -- Rene Descartes
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I fear being shaken out of them because I am afraid that my peaceful sleep may be followed by hard labour when I wake, and that I shall have to struggle not in the light but in the imprisoning darkness of the problems I have raised. -- Rene Descartes
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God alone is the author of all the motions in the world. -- Rene Descartes
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It is enough that I can understand one thing, clearly and distinctly, without another in order to be certain that one thing is distinct from the other. -- Rene Descartes
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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." -- Rene Descartes
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And it is evident that it is not less repugnant that falsity or imperfection, in so far as it is imperfection, should proceed from God, than that truth or perfection should proceed from nothing. -- Rene Descartes
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In order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn than to contemplate. -- Rene Descartes
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They do everything in their power to make fortune favor them in this life, but nevertheless they think so little of it, in relation to eternity, that they view the events of the world as we do those of a play. -- Rene Descartes
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The principal use of prudence, of self-control, is that it teaches us to be masters of our passions, and to so control and guide them that the evils which they cause are quite bearable, and that we even derive joy from them all. -- Rene Descartes
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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. -- Rene Descartes
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The only thing that I know, is that I know nothing -- Rene Descartes
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Instead I ought to be grateful to Him who never owed me anything for having been so generous to me, rather than think that He deprived me of those things or has taken away from me whatever He did not give me. -- Rene Descartes
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Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it. -- Rene Descartes
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With me, everything turns into mathematics. -- Rene Descartes
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Je pense, donc je suis; English: I think, therefore I am) -- Rene Descartes
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Science is practical philosophy. -- Rene Descartes
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Bad books engender bad habits, but bad habits engender good books. -- Rene Descartes
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Nothing comes out of nothing. -- Rene Descartes
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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. -- Rene Descartes
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I am like a prisoner who happens on enjoy an imaginary freedom in his dreams and who subsequently begins to suspect that he is asleep and, afraid of being awakened, conspires silently with his agreeable illusions. -- Rene Descartes
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It cannot be denied that he has had many exceptional ideas, and that he is a highly intelligent man. For my part, however, I have always been taught to take a broad overview of things, in order to be able to deduce from them general rules, which might be applicable elsewhere. -- Rene Descartes
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Neither the true nor the false roots are always real; sometimes they are imaginary; that is, while we can always imagine as many roots for each equation as I have assigned, yet there is not always a definite quantity corresponding to each root we have imagined. -- Rene Descartes
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Those who reason most powerfully and are the most successful at ordering their thoughts so as to make them clear and intelligible will always be best able to persuade others of what they say, even if they speak in the thickest of dialects -- Rene Descartes
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I will follow this strategy until I discover something that is certain or, at least, until I discover that it is certain only that nothing is certain. -- Rene Descartes
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When I turn my mind's eye upon myself, I understand that I am a thing which is incomplete and dependent on another and which aspires without limit to ever greater and better things ... -- Rene Descartes
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that we conduct our thoughts along different ways, and do not fix our attention on the same objects. -- Rene Descartes
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Of all things, good sense is the most fairly distributed: everyone thinks he is so well supplied with it that even those who are the hardest to satisfy in every other respect never desire more of it than they already have. -- Rene Descartes
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Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has. -- Rene Descartes
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On the other hand, I compared the disquisitions of the ancient moralists to very towering and magnificent palaces with no better foundation than sand and mud: -- Rene Descartes
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How do we know that anything really exists, that anything is really the way it seems ot us through our senses? -- Rene Descartes
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But what then am I? A thing that thinks. What is that? A thing that doubts, understand, affirms, denies, wills, refuses, and that also imagines and senses. -- Rene Descartes
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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
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Moreover, I am aware that most of the irreligious deny the existence of God, and the distinctness of the human soul from the body, for no other reason than because these points, as they allege, have never as yet been demonstrated. -- Rene Descartes
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Bene vixit, bene qui latuit.
(to live well is to live concealed) -- Rene Descartes
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I am thinking, therefore I exist. -- Rene Descartes
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I have concluded the evident existence of God, and that my existence depends entirely on God in all the moments of my life, that I do not think that the human spirit may know anything with greater evidence and certitude. -- Rene Descartes
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Good sense is the most equitably distributed of all things because no matter how much or little a person has, everyone feels so abundantly provided with good sense that he feels no desire for more than he already possesses. -- Rene Descartes
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Archimedes, that he might transport the entire globe ... demanded only a point that was firm and immovable; so also, I shall be entitled to entertain the highest expectations, if I am fortunate enough to discover only one thing that is certain and indubitable. -- Rene Descartes
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At last I will devote myself sincerely and without reservation to the general demolition of my opinions. -- Rene Descartes
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I resolv'd to faign, that all those things which ever entred into my Minde, were no more true, then the illusions of my dreams. -- Rene Descartes
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The first precept was never to accept a thing as true until I knew it as such without a single doubt. -- Rene Descartes
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Truths are more likely to have been discovered by one man than by nation -- Rene Descartes
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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. -- Rene Descartes
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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. -- Rene Descartes
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Although my knowledge grows more and more, nevertheless I do not for that reason believe that it can ever be actually infinite, since it can never reach a point so high that it will be unable to attain any greater increase. -- Rene Descartes
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One cannot conceive anything so strange and so implausible that it has not already been said by one philosopher or another. -- Rene Descartes
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It is a common failing of mortals to deem the more difficult the fairer. -- Rene Descartes
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It is just as valuable to be censured by friends as it is splendid to be praised by enemies. We desire praise from those who do not know us, but from friends we want the truth. -- Rene Descartes
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Illusory joy is often worth more than genuine sorrow. -- Rene Descartes
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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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There is nothing more ancient than the truth. -- Rene Descartes
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Nothing is made from nothing. -- Rene Descartes
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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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You just keep pushing. You just keep pushing. I made every mistake that could be made. But I just kept pushing. -- Rene Descartes
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For each of us there is a set limit to our intellectual powers which we cannot pass. -- Rene Descartes
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Masked, I advance. -- Rene Descartes
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The destruction of the foundations necessarily brings down the whole edifice. -- Rene Descartes
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I think; therefore I am. -- Rene Descartes
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Neither divine grace nor natural knowledge ever diminishes freedom. -- Rene Descartes
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I was convinced that our beliefs are based much more on custom and example than on any certain knowledge. -- Rene Descartes
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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. -- Rene Descartes
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Reason is nothing without imagination. -- Rene Descartes
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I concluded that I might take as a general rule the principle that all things which we very clearly and obviously conceive are true: only observing, however, that there is some difficulty in rightly determining the objects which we distinctly conceive. -- Rene Descartes
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The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest men of past centuries. -- Rene Descartes
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Those who move but very slowly, may advance much farther, if they always follow the right way; then those who run and straggle from it. -- Rene Descartes
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I am accustomed to sleep and in my dreams to imagine the same things that lunatics imagine when awake. -- Rene Descartes
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When writing about transcendental issues, be transcendentally clear. -- Rene Descartes
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Good sense is the most evenly distributed thing in the world; for everyone believes himself to be so well provided with it that even those who are the hardest to please in every other way do not usually want more of it than they already have. -- Rene Descartes
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Everything is self-evident. -- Rene Descartes
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He who hid well, lived well. -- Rene Descartes
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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. -- Rene Descartes
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It appears to me that I have discovered many truths more useful and more important than all I had before learned, or even had expected to learn. -- Rene Descartes
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It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well. -- Rene Descartes
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I know that I exist; the question is, What is this 'I' that 'I' know. -- Rene Descartes
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To think? That's it. It is thought. This alone cannot be detached from me. I am, I exist; that is certain. -- Rene Descartes
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In order to seek truth, it is necessary once in the course of our life to doubt, as far as possible, of all things. -- Rene Descartes
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Dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum.

(English: "I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am") -- Rene Descartes
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Few look for truth; many prowl about for a reputation of profundity by arrogantly challenging whichever arguments are the best. -- Rene Descartes
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The two operations of our understanding, intuition and deduction, on which alone we have said we must rely in the acquisition of knowledge. -- Rene Descartes
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And thereby make ourselves, as it were, the lords and masters of nature. -- Rene Descartes
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Doubt is the origin of wisdom -- Rene Descartes
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All is to be doubted. -- Rene Descartes
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Thus each truth discovered was a rule available in the discovery of subsequent ones. -- Rene Descartes
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Truths are more likely to be discovered by one man than by a nation -- Rene Descartes
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Several years have now passed since I first realized how numerous were the false opinions that in my youth I had taken to be true, and thus how doubtful were all those that I had subsequently built upon them. -- Rene Descartes
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The only secure knowledge is that I exist. -- Rene Descartes
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There is often not so much perfection in works composed of many pieces and made by the hands of various master craftsmen as there is in those works on which but a single individual has worked. -- Rene Descartes
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Good sense is of all things in the world the most equally distributed, for everybody thinks he is so well supplied with it that even those most difficult to please in all other matters never desire more of it than they already possess. -- Rene Descartes
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I took especially great pleasure in mathematics because of the certainty and the evidence of its arguments. -- Rene Descartes
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One should never judge anything unless it is known. -- Rene Descartes
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It is thus quite certain that the constitution of the true religion, the ordinances of which are derived from God, must be incomparably superior to that of every other. -- Rene Descartes
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Each problem that I solved became a rule, which served afterwards to solve other problems. -- Rene Descartes
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It is only prudent never to place complete confidence in that by which we have even once been deceived. -- Rene Descartes
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Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power. -- Rene Descartes
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It is not my design to teach the method that everyone must follow in order to use his reason properly, but only to show the way in which I have tried to use my own. -- Rene Descartes
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There is nothing so far removed from us to be beyond our reach, or so far hidden that we cannot discover it. -- Rene Descartes
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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. -- Rene Descartes
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My third maxim was to try always to master myself rather than fortune and change my desires rather than changing how things stand in the world. -- Rene Descartes
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I can doubt everything, except one thing, and that is the very fact that I doubt. Simply put - I think, therefore I am -- Rene Descartes
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Thereafter, I showed how the greatest part of the matter of this chaos must, in accordance with these laws, dispose and arrange itself in such a way as to present the appearance of heavens; -- Rene Descartes
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I am indeed amazed when I consider how weak my mind is and how prone to error. -- Rene Descartes
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I think, therefore I am" vs. "As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. -- Rene Descartes
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Wonder is the first of all the passions. -- Rene Descartes
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Desire awakens only to things that are thought possible. -- Rene Descartes
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For to be possessed of a vigorous mind is not enough; the prime requisite is rightly to apply it. -- Rene Descartes
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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. -- Rene Descartes
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Common sense is the most fairly distributed thing in the world, for each one thinks he is so well-endowed with it that even those who are hardest to satisfy in all other matters are not in the habit of desiring more of it than they already have. -- Rene Descartes
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It is best not to go on for great quest for truth , it will only make you miserable -- Rene Descartes
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For the very fact that my knowledge is increasing little by little is the most certain argument for its imperfection. -- Rene Descartes
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It is certain that I am really distinct from my body, and can exist without it. -- Rene Descartes
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Because reason ... is the only thing that makes us men, and distinguishes us from the beasts, I would prefer to believe that it exists, in its entirety, in each of us ... -- Rene Descartes
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The very desire to seek the truth often causes people, who do not know how it should be sought correctly, to make judgements about things that they do not perceive and in that way they make mistakes. -- Rene Descartes
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If I find some reason for doubt in each of my beliefs, that will be enough to reject all of them. -- Rene Descartes
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Mathematics is a more powerful instrument of knowledge than any other that has been bequeathed to us by human agency. -- Rene Descartes
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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. -- Rene Descartes
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He who lives well lives well hidden. -- Rene Descartes
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An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why must the pessimist always run to blow it out? -- Rene Descartes
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We do not describe the world we see, we see the world we can describe. -- Rene Descartes
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Divide each difficulty at hand into as many pieces as possible and as could be required to better solve them. -- Rene Descartes
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When it is not in our power to follow what is true, we ought to follow what is most probable. -- Rene Descartes
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Therefore from the fact alone that I know that I exist and that, at the same time, I notice absolutely nothing else that belongs to my nature apart from the single fact that I am a thinking thing, I correctly conclude that my essence consists in this alone, that I am a thinking thing. -- Rene Descartes
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On the other hand, when too much time is occupied in traveling, we become strangers to our native country; and the over curious in the customs of the past are generally ignorant of those of the present. -- Rene Descartes
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Any community that gets its laughs by pretending to be idiots will eventually be flooded by actual idiots who mistakenly believe that they're in good company. -- Rene Descartes
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Common sense is the most widely shared commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it. -- Rene Descartes
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The thinking of the mind is twofold: understanding and willing. -- Rene Descartes
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The object of music is a Sound. The end; to delight, and move various Affections in us. -- Rene Descartes
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Perfect numbers like perfect men are very rare. -- Rene Descartes
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One needs to know what thought is, what existence is and what certainty is. -- Rene Descartes
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Good sense is, of all things among men, the most equally distributed; for every one thinks himself so abundantly provided with it, that those even who are the most difficult to satisfy in everything else, do not usually desire a larger measure of this quality than they already possess. -- Rene Descartes
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A state is better governed which has few laws, and those laws strictly observed. -- Rene Descartes
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The reading of all good books is indeed like a conversation with the noblest men of past centuries who were the authors of them, nay a carefully studied conversation, in which they reveal to us none but the best of their thoughts. -- Rene Descartes
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All that is necessary to right action is right judgment, and to the best action the most correct judgment -- Rene Descartes
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The perusal of all excellent books is, as it were, to interview with the noblest men of past ages, who have written them. -- Rene Descartes
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It is contrary to reasoning to say that there is a vacuum or space in which there is absolutely nothing. -- Rene Descartes