Rene Descartes Quotes

De omnibus dubitandum

We do not describe the world we see, we see the world we can describe.

The only thing we have power over in the universe is our own thoughts.

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

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.

Doubt is the origin of wisdom

Conquer yourself rather than the world.

By 'God', I understand, a substance which is infinite, independent, supremely intelligent, supremely powerful, and which created both myself and everything else [...] that exists. All these attributes are such that, the more carefully I concentrate on them, the less possible it seems that they could have originated from me alone. So, from what has been said it must be concluded that God necessarily exists.

Omnia apud me mathematica fiunt.

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

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

I think; therefore I am.

The only thing that I know, is that I know nothing

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

I know that I exist; the question is, What is this 'I' that 'I' know.

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

How can you be certain that your whole life is not a dream?

Reason is nothing without imagination.

The chief cause of human errors is to be found in the prejudices picked up in childhood.

I can doubt everything, except one thing, and that is the very fact that I doubt. Simply put - I think, therefore I am

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

Wonder is the first of all the passions.

Nothing comes out of nothing.

Some years ago I was struck by the large number of falsehoods that I had accepted as true in my childhood, and by the highly doubtful nature of the whole edifice that I had subsequently based on them. I realized that it was necessary, once in the course of my life, to demolish everything completely and start again right from the foundations if I wanted to establish anything at all in the sciences that was stable and likely to last.

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