René Descartes

“Je pense donc je suis”

— René Descartes

Reason is nothing without imagination.

— Rene Descartes

Omnia apud me mathematica fiunt.

— Rene Descartes

I think; therefore I am.

— Rene Descartes

He lives well who is well hidden.

— Rene Descartes

I think therefore I exist.

— Rene Descartes

Science is practical philosophy.

— Rene Descartes

All is to be doubted.

— Rene Descartes

In order to improve the mind, we ought less learn than to contemplate.

— Rene Descartes

We do not describe the world we see, we see the world we can describe.

— Rene Descartes

Travelling is almost like talking with those of other centuries.

— Rene Descartes

But possibly I am something more than I suppose myself to be.

— Rene Descartes

“De omnibus dubitandum. (Doubt everything.)”

— René Descartes

Perfect numbers like perfect men are very rare.

— Rene Descartes

There is nothing more ancient than the truth.

— Rene Descartes

Bad books engender bad habits, but bad habits engender good books.

— Rene Descartes

“The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest men of past centuries.”

— René Descartes

In the matter of a difficult question it is more likely that the truth should have been discovered by the few than…

— Rene Descartes

“For ’tis not enough to have good faculties, but the principal is, to apply them well.”

— René Descartes

A person has two passions for love and abhorrence. A big disposition to excessiveness has just a love, because it is more…

— Rene Descartes

Even those who have the weakest souls could acquire absolute mastery over all their passions if we employed sufficient ingenuity in training…

— Rene Descartes

Divide each difficulty at hand into as many pieces as possible and as could be required to better solve them.

— Rene Descartes

To live without philosophizing is in truth the same as keeping the eyes closed without attempting to open them.

— Rene Descartes

Each problem that I solved became a rule, which served afterwards to solve other problems.

— Rene Descartes

“By intuition I mean, not the wavering assurance of the senses, or the deceitful judgment of a misconstructed imagination, but a conception,…

— René Descartes

The reading of all good books is indeed like a conversation with the noblest men of past centuries who were the authors…

— Rene Descartes

The nature of matter, or body considered in general, consists not in its being something which is hard or heavy or coloured,…

— Rene Descartes

[About Pierre de Fermat] It cannot be denied that he has had many exceptional ideas, and that he is a highly intelligent…

— Rene Descartes

Here I beg you to observe in passing that the scruples that prevented ancient writers from using arithmetical terms in geometry, and…

— Rene Descartes

Of all things, good sense is the most fairly distributed: everyone thinks he is so well supplied with it that even those…

— Rene Descartes

“And thus, the actions of life often not allowing any delay, it is a truth very certain that, when it is not…

— Rene Descartes

“It cannot be denied that he has had many exceptional ideas, and that he is a highly intelligent man. For my part,…

— René Descartes

Situations in life often permit no delay; and when we cannot determine the course which is certainly best, we must follow the…

— Rene Descartes

I suppose therefore that all things I see are illusions; I believe that nothing has ever existed of everything my lying memory…

— Rene Descartes

... regard this body as a machine which, having been made by the hand of God, is incomparably better ordered than any…

— Rene Descartes

“For these reasons, as soon as my age permitted me to pass from under the control of my instructors, I entirely abandoned…

— René Descartes

“The third, to conduct my thoughts in such order that, by commencing with objects the simplest and easiest to know, I might…

— René Descartes

These long chains of perfectly simple and easy reasonings by means of which geometers are accustomed to carry out their most difficult…

— Rene Descartes

“My third maxim was to endeavor always to conquer myself rather than fortune, and change my desires rather than the order of…

— René Descartes

It must not be thought that it is ever possible to reach the interior earth by any perseverance in mining: both because…

— Rene Descartes