Wisdom of René Descartes

René Descartes (March 31, 1596– February 11,1650) was a French scientist, mathematician and philosopher. He pioneered analytic geometry, is often considered the father of modern philosophy, and contributed greatly to the Age of Reason.

Below we list some words of wisdom from René Descartes.

“Reason is nothing without imagination.”

“God alone is the author of all the motions in the world.”

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

“With me, everything turns into mathematics.”

“Intuitive knowledge is an illumination of the soul, whereby it beholds in the light of God those things which it pleases Him to reveal to us by a direct impression of divine clearness.”

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Situations in life often permit no delay; and when we cannot determine the course which is certainly best, we must follow the one which is probably the best. This frame of mind freed me also from the repentance and remorse commonly felt by those vacillating individuals who are always seeking as worthwhile things which they later judge to be bad.”

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

“Conquer yourself rather than the world.”

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

“If I simply refrain from making a judgment in cases where I do not perceive the truth with sufficient clarity and distinctness, then it is clear that I am behaving correctly and avoiding error.”

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

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

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

“Mathematics is a more powerful instrument of knowledge than any other that has been bequeathed to us by human agency.”

“Before examining this more carefully and investigating its consequences, I want to dwell for a moment in the contemplation of God, to ponder His attributes in me, to see, admire, and adore the beauty of His boundless light, insofar as my clouded insight allows. Believing that the supreme happiness of the other life consists wholly of the contemplation of divine greatness, I now find that through less perfect contemplation of the same sort I can gain the greatest joy available in this life.”

“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.”

“And as it is the most generous souls who have most gratitude, it is those who have most pride, and who are most base and infirm, who most allow themselves to be carried away by anger and hatred.”

Copyright © Scott Petullo, Stephen Petullo