Best René Descartes Quotes About Philosophy, Math, and Science

In order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn, than to contemplate.

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.

Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it.

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

Perfect numbers like perfect men are very rare.

The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries.

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

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

It is well to know something of the manners of various peoples, in order more sanely to judge our own, and that we do not think that everything against our modes is ridiculous, and against reason, as those who have seen nothing are accustomed to think.

If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.

There is nothing so strange and so unbelievable that it has not been said by one philosopher or another.

Illusory joy is often worth more than genuine sorrow.

The senses deceive from time to time, and it is prudent never to trust wholly those who have deceived us even once.

Whenever anyone has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that the offense cannot reach it.

Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has.

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

It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well.