TuesdayMay 12, 2026
Quotes: 53419 Authors: 9969
Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power.
I think; therefore I am.
It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well.
I thought the following four [rules] would be enough, provided that I made a firm and constant resolution not to fail even once in the observance of them. The first was never to accept anything as true if I had not evident knowledge of its being so; that
If you would be a real seeker after truth, you must at least once in your life doubt, as far as possible, all things.
The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest men of the past centuries.
I hope that posterity will judge me kindly, not only as to the things which I have explained, but also to those which I have intentionally omitted so as to leave to others the pleasure of discovery.
Perfect numbers like perfect men are very rare.
If I found any new truths in the sciences, I can say that they follow from, or depend on, five or six principal problems which I succeeded in solving and which I regard as so many battles where the fortunes of war were on my side.
With me everything turns into mathematics. omnia apud me mathematica fiunt
When writing about transcendental issues, be transcendentally clear.
These long chains of perfectly simple and easy reasonings by means of which geometers are accustomed to carry out their most difficult demonstrations had led me to fancy that everything that can fall under human knowledge forms a similar sequence; and that so long as we avoid accepting as true what is not so, and always preserve the right order of deduction of one thing from another, there can be nothing too remote to be reached in the end, or to well hidden to be discovered.
If we possessed a thorough knowledge of all the parts of the seed of any animal (e.g. man), we could from that alone, be reasons entirely mathematical and certain, deduce the whole conformation and figure of each of its members, and, conversely if we knew several peculiarities of this conformation, we would from those deduce the nature of its seed.
Cogito Ergo Sum. 'I think, therefore I am.'
Of all things, good sense is the most fairly distributed: everyone thinks he is so well supplied with it that even those who are the hardest to satisfy in every other respect never desire more of it than they already have.
In order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn than to contemplate.
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.
Common sense is the most widely shared commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it.
A state is better governed which has but few laws, And those laws strictly observed.
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.
When it is not in our power to determine what is true, we ought to follow what is most probable.
I think, therefore I am.
Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems.
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