Rene Descartes Quotes

The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues.

- Rene Descartes

The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries.

- Rene Descartes

Travelling is almost like talking with those of other centuries.

- Rene Descartes

There is nothing so strange and so unbelievable that it has not been said by one philosopher or another.

- Rene Descartes

I am indeed amazed when I consider how weak my mind is and how prone to error.

- Rene Descartes

Whenever anyone has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that the offense cannot reach it.

- Rene Descartes

I hope that posterity will judge me kindly, not only as to the things which I have explained, but also to those which I have intentionally omitted so as to leave to others the pleasure of discovery.

- Rene Descartes

Common sense is the most fairly distributed thing in the world, for each one thinks he is so well-endowed with it that even those who are hardest to satisfy in all other matters are not in the habit of desiring more of it than they already have.

- Rene Descartes

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

- Rene Descartes

It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well.

- Rene Descartes

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

- Rene 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.

- Rene Descartes

An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why must the pessimist always run to blow it out?

- Rene Descartes

The senses deceive from time to time, and it is prudent never to trust wholly those who have deceived us even once.

- Rene Descartes

I am accustomed to sleep and in my dreams to imagine the same things that lunatics imagine when awake.

- Rene Descartes

Everything is self-evident.

- Rene Descartes

The two operations of our understanding, intuition and deduction, on which alone we have said we must rely in the acquisition of knowledge.

- Rene Descartes

In order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn, than to contemplate.

- Rene Descartes

When it is not in our power to follow what is true, we ought to follow what is most probable.

- Rene Descartes

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

- Rene Descartes

Each problem that I solved became a rule, which served afterwards to solve other problems.

- Rene Descartes

One cannot conceive anything so strange and so implausible that it has not already been said by one philosopher or another.

- Rene Descartes

Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it.

- Rene Descartes

I think; therefore I am.

- Rene Descartes

Illusory joy is often worth more than genuine sorrow.

- Rene Descartes

Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power.

- Rene Descartes

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

- Rene Descartes

Perfect numbers like perfect men are very rare.

- Rene Descartes