Rene Descartes
Rene Descartes
René Descarteswas a French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist. Dubbed the father of modern western philosophy, much of subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings, which are studied closely to this day. He spent about 20 years of his life in the Dutch Republic...
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth31 March 1596
CityIndre-et-Loire, France
believe men beast
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...
opinion all-things
But in my opinion, all things in nature occur mathematically.
expectations might enough
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.
goes-on quests aries
It is best not to go on for great quest for truth , it will only make you miserable
change believe power
My third maxim was to try always to conquer myself rather than fortune, and to change my desires rather than the order of the world, and generally to accustom myself to believing that there is nothing entirely in our power except our thoughts, so that after we have done our best regarding things external to us, everything in which we do not succeed is for us absolutely impossible.
ontology limits logic
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.
thinking common-sense desire
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.
wisdom laughter self
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the self-same well from which your laughter rises was often-times filled with your tears.
taken grateful thinking
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.
science might able
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.
lying risk curiosity
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.
might principles mathematical
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.
rocks doubt sake
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.
writing issues transcendental
When writing about transcendental issues, be transcendentally clear.