René Descartes Quotes

88 Sourced Quotes

For to be possessed of a vigorous mind is not enough; the prime requisite is rightly to apply it.

René Descartes
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.

René Descartes
Even the mind depends so much on temperament and the disposition of one's bodily organs that, if it is possible to find a way to make people generally more wise and more skilful than they have been in the past, I believe that we should look for it in medicine. It is true that medicine as it is currently practiced contains little of much use.

René Descartes
I suppose the body to be just a statue or a machine made of earth.

René Descartes
At all events it is certain that I seem to see light, hear a noise, and feel heat; this cannot be false, and this is what in me is properly called perceiving, which is nothing else than thinking. From this I begin to know what I am with somewhat greater clearness and distinctness than heretofore.

René Descartes
But I cannot forget that, at other times I have been deceived in sleep by similar illusions; and, attentively considering those cases, I perceive so clearly that there exist no certain marks by which the state of waking can ever be distinguished from sleep, that I feel greatly astonished; and in amazement I almost persuade myself that I am now dreaming.

René Descartes
Staying as I am, one foot in one country and the other in another, I find my condition very happy, in that it is free.

René Descartes
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.

René Descartes
At last I will devote myself sincerely and without reservation to the general demolition of my opinions.

René Descartes
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.

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

René Descartes
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.

René Descartes
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.

René Descartes
The last rule was to make enumerations so complete, and reviews so comprehensive, that I should be certain of omitting nothing.

René Descartes
Thus each truth discovered was a rule available in the discovery of subsequent ones.

René Descartes
Thinking is another attribute of the soul; and here I discover what properly belongs to myself. This alone is inseparable from me. I am—I exist: this is certain; but how often? As often as I think; for perhaps it would even happen, if I should wholly cease to think, that I should at the same time altogether cease to be. I now admit nothing that is not necessarily true: I am therefore, precisely speaking, only a thinking thing, that is, a mind, understanding, or reason,—terms whose signification was before unknown to me.

René Descartes
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.

René Descartes
The reading of good books is like a conversation with the best men of past centuries—in fact like a prepared conversation, in which they reveal only the best of their thoughts.

René Descartes
I must once, for all, seriously undertake to rid myself of all the opinions which I had previously accepted and commence to build anew from the foundation, if I wanted to establish anything firm and lasting in the sciences.

René Descartes
But what is a thinking thing? It is a thing that doubts, understands, [conceives], affirms, denies, wills, refuses, that imagines also, and perceives. Assuredly it is not little, if all these properties belong to my nature.

René Descartes
And thereby make ourselves, as it were, the lords and masters of nature.

René Descartes
The first precept was never to accept a thing as true until I knew it as such without a single doubt.

René Descartes
It is contrary to reason to say that there is a vacuum or space in which there is absolutely nothing.

René Descartes
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.

René Descartes
In my opinion, all things in nature occur mathematically.

René Descartes
I think, therefore I am.

René Descartes
That the nature of a body does not consist in weight, hardness, color, or other similar properties; but in extension alone. By so doing, we shall perceive that the nature of matter... does not consist in... affects of the senses... but only in the fact that it is a thing possessing extension in length, breadth, and depth.

René Descartes
I could not possibly exist with the nature I actually have, that is, one endowed with the idea of God, unless there really is a God; the very God, I mean, of whom I have an idea.

René Descartes