Quotes by René Descartes

“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.”

“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.”

“It is only prudent never to place complete confidence in that by which we have even once been deceived.”

“You just keep pushing. You just keep pushing. I made every mistake that could be made. But I just kept pushing.”

“There is nothing more ancient than the truth.”

“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.”

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

“But in my opinion, all things in nature occur mathematically.”

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

“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”

“It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well.”

“Thus the perception of the infinite is somehow prior in me to the perception of the finite, that is, my perception of God is prior to my perception of myself. For how would I understand that I doub...”

“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...”

“...we ought not meanwhile to make use of doubt in the conduct of life.”

“Whence then come my errors? They come from the sole fact that since the will is much wider in its range and compass than the understanding, I do not restrain it within the same bounds, but extend i...”

“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, ...”

“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 o...”

“...the greater objective (representative) perfection there is in our idea of a thing, the greater also must be the perfection of its cause.”

“For, occupied incessantly with the consideration of the limits prescribed to their power by nature, they [philosophers of former times] became so entirely convinced that nothing was at their dispos...”

“I revered our theology, and aspired as much as any one to reach heaven: but being given assuredly to understand that the way is not less open to the most ignorant than to the most learned, and that...”