René Descartes quote: "For, occupied incessantly with the consideration of the limits prescribed to their power by nature, they [philosophers of former times] became so entirely convinced that nothing was at their disposal except their own thoughts, that this conviction was of itself sufficient to prevent their entertaining any desire of other objects; and over their thoughts they acquired a sway so absolute, that they had some ground on this account for esteeming themselves more rich and more powerful, more free and more happy, than other men who, whatever be the favors heaped on them by nature and fortune, if destitute of this philosophy, can never command the realization of all their desires."

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

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

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

Because reason...is the only thing that makes us men, and distinguishes us from the beasts, I would ...
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

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

René Descartes

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