20 Rene Descartes Quotes on Philosophy

Rene Descartes quotes on philosophy

2. Cogito, ergo sum.

3. Ex nihilo nihil fit.

   Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

6. Variants: Good sense is of all things in the world the most equally distributed, for everybody thinks he is so well supplied with it, that even those most difficult to please in all other matters never desire more of it than they already possess. 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. Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has.

8. The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues.

14. One cannot conceive anything so strange and so implausible that it has not already been said by one philosopher or another.

15. Je pense, donc je suis.

17. larvatus Prodeo

18. Everything is self-evident.

19. The pituitary gland is the seat of the soul.

20. Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power.

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

23. I concluded that I might take as a general rule the principle that all things which we very clearly and obviously conceive are true: only observing, however, that there is some difficulty in rightly determining the objects which we distinctly conceive.

30. Illusory joy is often worth more than genuine sorrow.

34. De omnibus dubitandum

37. The long concatenations of simple and easy reasoning which geometricians use in achieving their most difficult demonstrations gave me occasion to imagine that all matters which may enter the human mind were interrelated in the same fashion.

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

40. To do is to be.

43. 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?

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

45. When writing about transcendental issues, be transcendentally clear.