Quotes About Doubt

while I wanted thus to think that everything was false, it necessarily had to be the case that I, who was thinking this, was something. And noticing that this truth—I think, therefore I am—was so firm and so assured that all the most extravagant suppositions of the skeptics were incapable of shaking it, I judged that I could accept it without scruple as the first principle of the philosophy I was seeking.

For I found myself involved in so many doubts and errors, that I was convinced I had advanced no farther in all my attempts at learning, than the discovery at every turn of my own ignorance. And

Be that as it may, there is fixed in my mind a certain opinion of long [21] standing, namely that there exists a God who is able to do anything and by whom I, such as I am, have been created. How do I know that he did not bring it about that there is no earth at all, no heavens, no extended thing, no shape, no size, no place, and yet bringing it about that all these things appear to me to exist precisely as they do now?

the more uncommon often only mislead us so long as the causes of the more ordinary are still unknown;

Yesterday's meditation raised doubts—ones that are too serious to be ignored—which I can see no way of resolving. I feel like someone who is suddenly dropped into a deep whirlpool that tumbles him around so that he can neither stand on the bottom nor swim to the top. However, I shall force my way up, and try once more to carry out the project that I started on yesterday.

Right understanding is the most equally divided thing in the World; for every one beleevs himself so well stor'd with it, that even those who in all other things are the hardest to be pleas'd, seldom desire more of it then they have; wherein it is not likely that all Men are deceived:

And let him do his best at deception, he will never bring it about that I am nothing so long as I shall think that I am something.

Je sais combien nous sommes sujets à nous méprendre en ce qui nous touche, et combien aussi les jugements de nos amis nous doivent être suspects, lorsqu'ils sont en notre faveur.

I did not imitate the skeptics who doubt only for doubting's sake, and pretend to be always undecided; on the contrary, my whole intention was to arrive at a certainty, and to dig away the drift and the sand until I reached the rock or the clay beneath.

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

Descartes busca reglas fijas para descubrir verdades, no para defender tesis o exponer teorías.

Pour examiner la vérité, il est besoin, une fois dans sa vie, de mettre toutes choses en doute autant qu'il se peut.

punto de partida es la duda metódica. La duda cartesiana no es escepticismo, sino un procedimiento dialéctico de investigación, encaminado a desprender y aislar la primera verdad evidente, la primera idea clara y distinta, la primera naturaleza simple.

En realidad, la hipótesis del genio maligno ni es un juego ni un círculo de hierro, sino un movimiento dialéctico, muy importante en el curso del pensamiento cartesiano. Repárese en que la hipótesis del genio maligno, necesita, para ser destruida, la demostración de la existencia de Dios. Sólo cuando sabemos que Dios existe y que Dios es incapaz de engañarnos, sólo entonces queda deshecha la última

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.

In order to seek truth, it is necessary once in the course of our life to doubt, as far as possible, of all things.

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

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

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

Everything is self-evident.

Cela n'autorise-t-il pas à dire que la suprême habileté du diable, de quelque façon qu'on le conçoive, c'est de faire nier son existence ?

Sometimes all that's left is faith

Hope springs eternal. Just remember: so does evil. Sometimes they are impossible to tell apart.

Everyone was harmless until you knew better.