René Descartes - Nature Quotes

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In God there is an infinitude of things which I cannot comprehend, nor possibly even reach in any way by thought; for it is the nature of the infinite that my nature, which is finite and limited, should not comprehend it.

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
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
In my opinion, all things in nature occur mathematically.

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

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
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
No more useful inquiry can be proposed than that which seeks to determine the nature and the scope of human knowledge.... This investigation should be undertaken once at least in his life by anyone who has the slightest regard for truth, since in pursuing it the true instruments of knowledge and the whole method of inquiry come to light. But nothing seems to me more futile than the conduct of those who boldly dispute about the secrets of nature... without yet having ever asked even whether human reason is adequate to the solution of these problems.

René Descartes
M. Desargues puts me under obligations on account of the pains that it has pleased him to have in me, in that he shows that he is sorry that I do not wish to study more in geometry, but I have resolved to quit only abstract geometry, that is to say, the consideration of questions which serve only to exercise the mind, and this, in order to study another kind of geometry, which has for its object the explanation of the phenomena of nature... You know that all my physics is nothing else than geometry.

René Descartes