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Because reason...is the only thing that makes us men, and distinguishes us from the beasts, I would prefer to believe that it exists, in its entirety, in each of us...


René Descartes

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MAYA ANGELOU The law. we are told, is what makes us men under God instead of beasts in the ditch
BERNARD CORNWELL Science, literature, and common sense tell us that the self is a fickle thing, subject to revision i...
JESSE KELLERMAN It is what makes us human, what distinguishes us from other animals. We can be aware of being aware.
JON KABAT-ZINN Originality exists in every individual because each of us differs from the others. We are all primar...
JEAN GUITTON If there was no such thing as death, men would scarcely live. The human race thrives on the fear of ...
KIRPA RAI We may claim to believe in God, but we don't want to believe so much that it makes us different.
CRAIG GROESCHEL The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is its inefficiency.
EUGENE MCCARTHY The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is its inefficiency.
EUGENE J. MCCARTHY We are only different because there exists something to be different from, and it is this difference...
CHRIS MATAKAS Obedience is detachment from the self. This is the most radical detachment of all. But what is the s...
BEDE GRIFFITHS I think that it would be unwise of us not to believe that there is life outside of us, intelligent l...
SIA The best definition of faith that I know is that it is reason grown courageous. Moreover, that is al...
SIR WILFRED T. GRENFELL In its entirety, probably, it follows us at every instant; all that we have felt, thought and willed...
HENRI BERGSON Feminism is nothing but equality, and actually, feminism benefits men because it liberates us and it...
EDGAR RAMIREZ The reason why some of us love when it rain is because it fills in the faults of our broken hearts a...
VANSHICCA DHYANI If we believe in an all-powerful God, then we must then believe that God gave us this Earth, and we ...
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE The Republicans here in Concord and down in Washington D.C. would have us believe that the War on Wo...
ANN MCLANE KUSTER Because there is no cosmic point to the life that each of us perceives on this distant bit of dust a...
GORE VIDAL Coach is very intense and he wants us to do our best off the court and on the court. He expects so m...
KRYSTLE HORTON I believe in the old, because it shows us where we come from - where our souls have risen from. And ...
ABIGAIL WASHBURN I don't mean this in any sort of trite way, ... but the music has really been the thing that has hea...
BILLY CORGAN That makes us think the only reason it's in there is so it can eventually be used for accountability...
LINDA MORA I learned that in each of us there burns a flame of independence that must never be allowed to go ou...
BRYCE COURTENAY The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreason...
US CONSTITUTION No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor ...
US CONSTITUTION Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise...
US CONSTITUTION A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people t...
US CONSTITUTION It is the story that owns and directs us. It is the thing that makes us different from cattle; it is...
CHINUA ACHEBE It is the want to know the end that makes us believe in God, or witchcraft, believe, at least, in so...
TRUMAN CAPOTE When violence is real and you flinch away from it, violence does not push people to try and imitate ...
ANURAG KASHYAP Life! Life! Don’t let us go to life for our fulfilment or our experience. It is a thing narrowed b...
OSCAR WILDE Faith is the surrender of the mind, it's the surrender of reason, it's the surrender of the only thi...
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS It is only at the first encounter that a face makes its full impression on us.
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER Palm Sunday In the person of Christ, the formidable law of God, which by itself appalls us by its...
E. E. JENKINS Maybe men and women aren't from different planets as pop culture would have us believe. Maybe we liv...
SARAH JESSICA PARKER It is not that the child lives in a world of imagination, but that the child within us survives and ...
CESARE PAVESE Belief in our mortality, the sense that we are eventually going to crack up and be extinguished like...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN I believe in blues, and I believe that it's been misrepresented.
JOHN MAYER After 9/11, the only thing that keeps us going is belief in each other. We can't fail.
FEKKAK MAMDOUH Laughter is important, not only because it makes us happy, it also has actual health benefits. And t...
MARLO THOMAS What distinguishes those of us at the starting line from those of us on the couch is that we learn t...
JOHN BINGHAM I believe that I was a dog in a past life. That's the only thing that would explain why I like t...
DEAN KOONTZ We lack faith in *what* exists within us because we lack faith in *Who* exists within us.
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON Patience pleases us causing not only to say the right thing in the right place but also not to tell ...
NISHI DE SILVA Literature differs from life in that life is amorphously full of detail, and rarely directs us towar...
JAMES WOOD A truth which comes to us from outside always bears the stamp of uncertainty. We can believe only wh...
RUDOLF STEINER We believe because it gives us faith. It gives us the willingness to go through our day, to keep the...
TARUN BETALA As a theist I believe that God exists and that God creates.
PHILLIP E. JOHNSON The two men had a conversation. Brief, cryptic, to the point. As though they had exchanged numbers a...
ARUNDHATI ROY Hence the soul is nothing intrinsically real, nor is the body either; each of them exists in time on...
F.W.J. SCHELLING I believe in aliens. I think it would be way too selfish of us as mankind to believe we are the only...
DEMI LOVATO I think that most of us would prefer to be popular than unpopular.
DESMOND TUTU What's more, I was free to do anything that did not hurt others that strengthened me and helped me i...
SAMUEL R. DELANY I think that food ties us to our community and our traditions, and it's the thing that makes us ...
KATHY FRESTON Because we feel ourselves to be separate from the world in which we live, we have also grown to feel...
JOSEPH P. KAUFFMAN The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is the inefficiency
EUGENE J. MCCARTHY It's giving us more experience. It helps us believe in each other.
BRITTANY STANLEY My mother is an amazing woman. Not only did she manage the entire household, she noticed a gift in e...
BARBARA CORCORAN I believe that we are here to contribute love to the planet - each of us in our own way
BERNIE SIEGEL Agape, the love of each one of us for the other, from the closest to the furthest, is in fact the on...
POPE FRANCIS This oath is the oath we all swear. Not to a god, or a master, or to the Ludu Achillea...but to our ...
LESLEY LIVINGSTON They are ahead of us in the league for a reason, don't doubt that. But I feel we are serious challen...
DIETMAR HAMANN Of all living things, only humans consciously anticipate death; the consequent need to choose how to...
DREW GILPIN FAUST The trendy management fads concentrate on antecedents, ... but the only thing that makes what you do...
AUBREY DANIELS I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but becaus...
C. S. LEWIS I was thinking that if what distinguishes us as humans is our stupidity, what may redeem us is our g...
EARL LOVELACE I think Islam has been hijacked by the idea that all Muslims are terrorists; that Islam is about hat...
AASIF MANDVI The only thing that made me, or any of us, special was that no one in the whole of history would eve...
GRANT MORRISON I think the job of writing and literature is to encourage each one of us to believe that we're l...
NAOMI SHIHAB NYE Neuroscience makes us connect with each other at an emotional level. It makes us make friends. It ma...
ABHIJIT NASKAR The only reason they were talking about that is they were expecting us to have a losing season. And ...
AARON RODGERS Companies made money and were beholden to stockholders; it was understandable if they tried to “co...
ARLIE RUSSELL HOCHSCHILD There are no guarantees in life, but I believe faith provides all of us with a foundation to live th...
GRETCHEN CARLSON If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe...
CARL SAGAN Only great pain, the long, slow pain that takes its time... compels us to descend to our ultimate de...
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that non...
CALVIN HOBBES Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that non...
BILL WATTERSON Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that non...
CALVIN & HOBBES Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that non...
CALVIN & HOBBES It is important for us to understand where we came from and how we got here because it would be very...
BRUCE NORDSTROM In our daily lives, we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but the gratefulnes...
ALBERT CLARKE "The irony of imagination is that it can free us from reason as well as confine us to the absence of...
FORREST MUNDEN Oh, love isn't there to make us happy. I believe it exists to show us how much we can endure.
HERMANN HESSE Only that thing is free which exists by the necessities of its own nature, and is determined in its ...
BARUCH SPINOZA Only that thing is free which exists by the necessities of its own nature, and is determined in its ...
BARUCH (_BENEDICT DE) SPINOZA How false is the conception, how frantic the pursuit, of that treacherous phantom which men call Lib...
JOHN RUSKIN The refusal to rest content, the willingness to risk excess on behalf of one's obsessions, is what d...
JOHN UPDIKE We believe that electricity exists, because the electric company keeps sending us bills for it, but ...
DAVE BARRY The only thing holding us back is ourselves.
BRAD HENRY Most of us don't think the amount of money we have in our back pocket is the only thing that is good...
ANDREW MOORE In fine, he that is drunk is not a Man: Because he is so long void of Reason, that distinguishes a M...
WILLIAM PENN Only part of us is sane: only part of us loves pleasure and the longer day of happiness, wants to li...
REBECCA WEST Love is really the only thing we can possess, keep with us, and take with us.
ELISABETH KUBLER-ROSS I perceived that to express those impressions, to write that essential book, which is the only true ...
MARCEL PROUST I was told by so many people that I wouldn't succeed because I was too different. Ironically, th...
LINDSEY STIRLING The root of joy is gratefulness...It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes u...
DAVID STEINDL-RAST The world is in front of us. It's up to us to go in and seize it. The front office has put us in pos...
BERTRAND BERRY

More René Descartes

Common sense is the most widely shared commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is...
RENé DESCARTES I suppose therefore that all things I see are illusions; I believe that nothing has ever existed of ...
RENé DESCARTES I think; therefore I am.
RENé DESCARTES If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt...
RENé DESCARTES Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it.
RENé DESCARTES So blind is the curiosity by which mortals are possessed, that they often conduct their minds along ...
RENé DESCARTES Cogito ergo sum. (I think, therefore I am.)
RENé DESCARTES And thus, the actions of life often not allowing any delay, it is a truth very certain that, when it...
RENé DESCARTES Whence then come my errors? They come from the sole fact that since the will is much wider in its ra...
RENé DESCARTES The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest men of past centuries.
RENé DESCARTES ...the greater objective (representative) perfection there is in our idea of a thing, the greater al...
RENé DESCARTES ...we ought also to consider as false all that is doubtful.
RENé DESCARTES With me, everything turns into mathematics.
RENé DESCARTES But in my opinion, all things in nature occur mathematically.
RENé DESCARTES Masked, I advance.
RENé DESCARTES It cannot be denied that he RENé DESCARTES Each problem that I solved became a rule, which served afterwards to solve other problems.
RENé DESCARTES ...we ought not meanwhile to make use of doubt in the conduct of life.
RENé DESCARTES Thus the perception of the infinite is somehow prior in me to the perception of the finite, that is,...
RENé DESCARTES Dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum.

(English: "I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am")
RENé DESCARTES It is only prudent never to place complete confidence in that by which we have even once been deceiv...
RENé DESCARTES [...] the diversity of our opinions, consequently, does not arise from some being endowed with a lar...
RENé DESCARTES The last rule was to make enumerations so complete, and reviews so comprehensive, that I should be c...
RENé DESCARTES For, occupied incessantly with the consideration of the limits prescribed to their power by nature, ...
RENé DESCARTES Booty Butt, Booty Butt, Booty Butt Cheeks
RENé DESCARTES ...it is a mark of prudence never to place our complete trust in those who have deceived us even onc...
RENé DESCARTES Let whoever can do so deceive me, he will never bring it about that I am nothing, so long as I conti...
RENé DESCARTES At last I will devote myself sincerely and without reservation to the general demolition of my opini...
RENé DESCARTES For I found myself embarrassed with so many doubts and errors that it seemed to me that the effort t...
RENé DESCARTES To live without philosophizing is in truth the same as keeping the eyes closed without attempting to...
RENé DESCARTES Like a prisoner who dreams that he is free, starts to
suspect that it is merely a dream, and wa...
RENé DESCARTES Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he alre...
DESCARTES The commandment to imitate Jesus does not appear suddenly in a world exempt from imitation; rather i...
RENé GIRARD The differences between East and West seem to have been continually on the increase, but this diverg...
RENé GUéNON I believe in the magic and authority of words.
RENé CHAR A man who makes a plate or a shirt or a loaf of bread or anything our great great ancestors called a...
RENé DAUMAL A lot of it is non-verbal, so it translates really well.
RENé RUIZ The experience of death is going to get more and more painful, contrary to what many people believe....
RENé GIRARD In somber mood, I re-called my whole life up to this day, and my head spun with the buzzing of a hun...
RENé DAUMAL The distance between Don Quixote and the petty bourgeois victim of advertising is not so great as ro...
RENé GIRARD The most powerful anti-Christian movement is the one that takes over and "radicalizes" the concern f...
RENé GIRARD Our concern for victims is the secular mask of Christian love.
RENé GIRARD So long as globalization was slow in coming, everyone hoped and prayed that it would come soon. The ...
RENé GIRARD Mature love is like mature infinity: there is no such thing!
RENé FRIEDRICH C’est ainsi que, par exemple, l’idée de l’Infini, qui est en réalité la plus positive de to...
RENé GUéNON A group called Toxic Audio would be the last place a person would expect to find the types of a capp...
RENé RUIZ LONG LIVE...

This country is but a wish of the spirit, a counter-sepulcher.
<...
RENé CHAR Being happy has -huge- advantages. One, you smile more. Training of facial muscles. Automatic! But d...
RENé FRIEDRICH The goal of religious thinking is exactly the same as that of technological research -- namely, prac...
RENé GIRARD Straight lines go too quickly to appreciate the pleasures of the journey. They rush straight to thei...
RENé CREVEL À l’époque primordiale, l’homme était, en lui-même, parfaitement équilibré quant au compl�...
RENé GUéNON Desire, desire which knows, we draw no advantage from our shadows except from some veritable soverei...
RENé CHAR On peut s’expliquer facilement par là un fait que nous avons eu fréquemment l’occasion de cons...
RENé GUéNON I am dead because I lack desire,
I lack desire because I think I possess,
I think I posses...
RENé DAUMAL Quoi qu’il en soit, Leibnitz ne sut jamais s’expliquer nettement sur les principes de son calcul...
RENé GUéNON Be that as it may, Leibnitz was never able to explain the principles of his calculus clearly, and th...
RENé GUéNON Les formes paraissaient étranges parce qu'elles étaient inconnues.
RENé BARJAVEL This place has only three exits, sir: Madness, and Death.
RENé DAUMAL Hope is not undeniable; but it's always there. Hope is not invincible; but it keeps coming back.
RENé FRIEDRICH The revolutionaries thought they would be destroying vanity when they destroyed the privileges of th...
RENé GIRARD The revolutionaries thought they would be destroying vanity when they destroyed the privileges of th...
RENé GIRARD It is often by a trivial, even an anecdotal decision, that we direct our activities into a certain c...
RENé DUBOS You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down again. So why bother in the first place...
RENé DAUMAL [...] Sans entrer encore dans la question de la « composition du continu », on voit donc que le no...
RENé GUéNON All the means we've been given to stay alert we use to ornament our sleep. If instead of endlessly i...
RENé DAUMAL You only fight well for causes you yourself have shaped, with which you identify—and burn.
RENé CHAR J'attends avec impatience le jour où les chercheurs se rendront compte que, dans les mythes, ils on...
RENé GIRARD Du reste, la majorité des orientalistes ne sont et ne veulent être que des érudits ; tant qu’il...
RENé GUéNON The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries.
RENE DESCARTES A state is better governed which has few laws, and those laws strictly observed.
RENE DESCARTES When it is not in our power to follow what is true, we ought to follow what is most probable.
RENE DESCARTES Everything is self-evident.
RENE DESCARTES An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why must the pessimist always run to blow it ou...
RENE DESCARTES Travelling is almost like talking with those of other centuries.
RENE DESCARTES Perfect numbers like perfect men are very rare.
RENE DESCARTES In order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn, than to contemplate.
RENE DESCARTES Common sense is the most fairly distributed thing in the world, for each one thinks he is so well-en...
RENE DESCARTES When writing about transcendental issues, be transcendentally clear.
RENE DESCARTES There is nothing so strange and so unbelievable that it has not been said by one philosopher or anot...
RENE DESCARTES To know what people really think, pay regard to what they do, rather than what they say.
RENE DESCARTES I hope that posterity will judge me kindly, not only as to the things which I have explained, but al...
RENE DESCARTES There may indeed be those who would prefer to deny the existence of a God so powerful, rather than b...
RENE DESCARTES It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well.
RENE DESCARTES If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt...
RENE DESCARTES Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it.
RENE DESCARTES I am accustomed to sleep, and in my dreams to imagine the same things that lunatics imagine when awa...
RENE DESCARTES Let us suppose, then, that we are dreaming, and that all these particulars--namely, the opening of t...
RENE DESCARTES Whenever anyone has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that the offense cannot reach it.
RENE DESCARTES The reading of all good books is indeed like a conversation with the noblest men of past centuries w...
RENE DESCARTES Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he alre...
RENE DESCARTES To know what people really think, pay regard to what they do, rather than what they say.
RENE DESCARTES Dubito ergo cogito; cogito ergo sum.(I doubt, therefore I think; I think therefore I am)
RENE DESCARTES Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power.
RENE DESCARTES One cannot conceive anything so strange and so implausible that it has not already been said by one ...
RENE DESCARTES The two operations of our understanding, intuition and deduction, on which alone we have said we mus...
RENE DESCARTES I am accustomed to sleep and in my dreams to imagine the same things that lunatics imagine when awak...
RENE DESCARTES The senses deceive from time to time, and it is prudent never to trust wholly those who have deceive...
RENE DESCARTES I think; therefore I am.
RENE DESCARTES Each problem that I solved became a rule, which served afterwards to solve other problems.
RENE DESCARTES The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues.
RENE DESCARTES Illusory joy is often worth more than genuine sorrow.
RENE DESCARTES It is only prudent never to place complete confidence in that by which we have even once been deceiv...
RENE DESCARTES The first precept was never to accept a thing as true until I knew it as such without a single doubt...
RENE DESCARTES It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well.
RENE DESCARTES Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems.
RENE DESCARTES Cogito ergo sum. (I think; therefore I am.)
RENE DESCARTES Thinking is another attribute of the soul; and here I discover what properly belongs to myself. This...
RENE DESCARTES The essence of intelligence is skill in extracting meaning from everyday experience.
RENE DESCARTES Dubito ergo cogito; cogito ergo sum.
(I doubt, therefore I think; I think therefore I am)
RENE DESCARTES If I found any new truths in the sciences, I can say that they follow from, or depend on, five or si...
RENE DESCARTES Common sense is the best distributed thing in the world, for everyone thinks he is so well-endowed w...
RENE DESCARTES In order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn, than to contemplate
RENE DESCARTES I concluded that I might take as a general rule the principle that all things which we very clearly ...
RENE DESCARTES The senses deceive from time to time, and it is prudent never to trust wholly those who have deceive...
RENE DESCARTES Whenever anyone has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that the offense cannot reach it
RENE DESCARTES It is easy to hate and it is difficult to love. This is how the whole scheme of things works. All go...
RENE DESCARTES At the time, my grandparents told my mom, "Lordy, what is Shannen doing?" Now I've calmed down. [on ...
RENE DESCARTES The long concatenations of simple and easy reasoning which geometricians use in achieving their most...
RENE DESCARTES When I consider this carefully, I find not a single property which with certainty separates the waki...
RENE DESCARTES There is nothing so strange or so unbelievable that it has not been said by one philosopher or anoth...
RENE DESCARTES Omnia apud me mathematica fiunt.
RENE DESCARTES When it is not in our power to determine what it true, we ought to follow what is most probable
RENE DESCARTES You just keep pushing. You just keep pushing. I made every mistake that could be made. But I just ke...
RENE DESCARTES Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he alre...
RENE DESCARTES The principal effect of the passions is that they incite and persuade the mind to will the events fo...
RENE DESCARTES I think, therefor I am
RENE DESCARTES The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest men of past centuries.
RENE DESCARTES Everybody thinks himself so well supplied with common sense that even those most difficult to please...
RENE DESCARTES Of all things, good sense is the most fairly distributed: everyone thinks he is so well supplied wit...
RENE DESCARTES Good sense is, of all things among men, the most equally distributed; for everyone thinks himself so...
RENE DESCARTES If we possessed a thorough knowledge of all the parts of the seed of any animal (e.g. man), we could...
RENE DESCARTES I am indeed amazed when I consider how weak my mind is and how prone to error.
RENE DESCARTES I think therefore I exist.
RENE DESCARTES The greatest minds, as they are capable of the highest excellencies, are open likewise to the greate...
RENE DESCARTES Explanations are relative in the sense that their validity always depends...on how the thing to be e...
RENE DESCARTES Good sense is of all things in the world the most equally distributed, for everybody thinks he is so...
RENE DESCARTES A state is better governed which has few laws, and those laws strictly observed
RENE DESCARTES He who does not have the courage to speak up for his rights cannot earn the respect of others.
RENé G. TORRES Gaily I lived as ease and nature taught, And spent my little life without a thought, And am amazed t...
RENé FRANCOIS REGNIER Para que los pasos no me lloren,
para que las palabras no me sangren:
canto.

OTTO RENé CASTILLO But I don't shut up and I don't die.
I live
and fight, maddening
those who rule my co...
OTTO RENé CASTILLO A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between her work and her play; her labor an...
FRANçOIS-RENé DE CHATEAUBRIAND Art is contemplation. It is the pleasure of the mind which searches into nature and which there divi...
FRANçOIS AUGUSTE RENé RODIN ô enfance du coeur humain qui ne vieillit jamais! voilà donc à quel degré de puérilité notre s...
FRANçOIS-RENé DE CHATEAUBRIAND A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor an...
FRANçOIS-RENé DE CHATEAUBRIAND An original writer is not one who imitates nobody, but one whom nobody can imitate.
FRANçOIS-RENé DE CHATEAUBRIAND Le passé et le présent sont deux statues incomplètes: l'une a été retirée toute mutilée du d�...
FRANçOIS-RENé DE CHATEAUBRIAND An infinity of these tiny animals defoliate our plants, our trees, our fruits... they attack our hou...
RENé-ANTOINE FERCHAULT DE RéAUMUR