Books Quote by René Descartes

““Even if all knowledge could be found in books, where it is mixed in with so many useless things and confusingly heaped in such large volumes, it would take longer to read those books than we have to live in this life and more effort to select the useful things than to find them oneself””

René Descartes

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Books Knowledge Useless things

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

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Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the self-same well from which your laughter rises was often-times filled with your tears.

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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…

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“For to be possessed of a vigorous mind is not enough; the prime requisite is rightly to apply it. The greatest minds, as they…

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“It is useful to know something of the manners of different nations, that we may be enabled to form a more correct judgment regarding…

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A state is better governed which has few laws, and those laws strictly observed.

Rene Descartes

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

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Science is practical philosophy.

Rene Descartes

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“And what more am I? I look for aid to the imagination. [But how mistakenly!] I am not that assemblage of limbs we call…

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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…

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Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has.

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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…

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I think a new world will arise out of the religious mists when we approach our Bible with the idea that it is not…

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If I had a dollar for every time I couldn’t sleep, I could buy a billion locks and finally read a book in peace.

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If what I write is literature, I guess you'd better emphasize the 'litter.'

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My sentences got sharper and my stories more efficient, and I gradually learned to imagine the reader more clearly and to empathize with that…

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Young men, especially in America, write to me and ask me to recommend “a course of reading.” Distrust a course of reading! People who…

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“Within the pages of books, I've journeyed to Mandalay, the Milky Way and Santa Fe, without once having to leave my armchair.”

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The Rosary is the book of the blind.

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“Tacitus did not write a most dangerous book. His readers made it so.”

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“Take some books and read; that’s an immense help; and books are always good company if you have the right sort.”

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Reader, if you are gifted with nerves like mine, aspire to any character but that of a wit.

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I have many who keep me going, I am very fortunate in this sense. There is nothing like a child who knows more about…

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I think books in which people are really happy and things are going well are probably the most challenging novels there are to write,…

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Books Quote by René Descartes

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