224 Quotes by Rene Descartes

There is a difference between happiness, the supreme good, and the final end or goal toward which our actions ought to tend. For happiness is not the supreme good, but presupposes it, being the contentment or satisfaction of the mind which results from possessing it.

Mathematics is a more powerful instrument of knowledge than any other that has been bequeathed to us by human agency.

It is contrary to reasoning to say that there is a vacuum or space in which there is absolutely nothing.

I know that I exist; the question is, What is this 'I' that 'I' know.

For how do we know that the thoughts which occur in dreaming are false rather than those others which we experience when awake, since the former are often not less vivid and distinct than the latter?

God alone is the author of all the motions in the world.

Neither the true nor the false roots are always real; sometimes they are imaginary; that is, while we can always imagine as many roots for each equation as I have assigned, yet there is not always a definite quantity corresponding to each root we have imagined.

He who hid well, lived well.

In the matter of a difficult question it is more likely that the truth should have been discovered by the few than by the many.