One cannot conceive anything so strange and so implausible that it has not already been said by one philosopher or another.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Very few ideas are truly original; most have been proposed by some philosopher before.
- In plain terms
- Most strange ideas have been said before by someone.
- What can you take from it?
- Be humble about the originality of your ideas.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Is true originality possible?
- How do you verify if an idea is new?
Another view
Some unique perspectives or contexts can still be genuinely new.
More from Rene Descartes
Each problem that I solved became a rule, which served afterwards to solve other problems.
Permalink to quote #13 Je pense, donc je suis.
Permalink to quote #15 The long chains of simple and easy reasonings by means of which geometers are accustomed to reach the conclusions of their most difficult demonstrations, had l…
Permalink to quote #12
Related quotes
Ideas shape the course of history.
John Maynard KeynesJohn Maynard Keynes quote #19 A philosopher of imposing stature doesn't think in a vacuum. Even his most abstract ideas are, to some extent, conditioned by what is or is not known in the ti…
Alfred North WhiteheadAlfred North Whitehead quote #59 Alles Gescheite ist schon gedacht worden. Man muss nur versuchen, es noch einmal zu denken.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheJohann Wolfgang von Goethe quote #76