Quote #41

To know what people really think, pay regard to what they do, rather than what they say.

Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

More from Rene Descartes

  1. To do is to be.
  2. Traveling is almost like talking with those of other centuries.
  3. The two operations of our understanding, intuition and deduction, on which alone we have said we must rely in the acquisition of knowledge.
  4. 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…
  5. The reading of all good books is indeed like a conversation with the noblest men of past centuries who were the authors of them, nay a care…
  6. When it is not in our power to determine what is true, we ought to follow what is most probable.
  7. The long concatenations of simple and easy reasoning which geometricians use in achieving their most difficult demonstrations gave me occas…
  8. When writing about transcendental issues, be transcendentally clear.

All Rene Descartes quotes