Quotes from Rene Descartes

Every man is indeed bound to do what he can to promote the good of others, and a man who is of no use to anyone is strictly worthless.

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

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

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

And I shall always hold myself more obliged to those by whose favour I enjoy uninterrupted leisure than to any who might offer me the most honourable positions in the world.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

When I consider this carefully, I find not a single property which with certainty separates the waking state from the dream. How can you be certain that your whole life is not a dream?

It's the familiar love-hate syndrome of seduction: "I don't really care what it is I say, I care only that you like it."

Travelling is almost like talking with those of other centuries.

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

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.

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

It is best not to go on for great quest for truth , it will only make you miserable

If ... it is not in my power to arrive at the knowledge of any truth, I may at least do what is in my power, namely, suspend judgement.

A person has two passions for love and abhorrence. A big disposition to excessiveness has just a love, because it is more ardent and stronger.

There is nothing more ancient than the truth.

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

The entire method consists in the order and arrangement of the things to which the mind's eye must turn so that we can discover some truth.

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