Rene Descartes Quotes
Rene Descartes was a French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist often called the father of modern philosophy. In the Meditations on First Philosophy he applied methodic doubt to establish a foundational certainty in the cogito, captured by the formula I think, therefore I am. The quotes below are attributed to Rene Descartes, organized by topic.
Browse Rene Descartes by topic
Rene Descartes on Freedom
-
“Staying as I am, one foot in one country and the other in another, I find my condition very happy, in that it is free.”
Me tenant comme je suis, un pied dans un pays et l'autre en un autre, je trouve ma condition très heureuse, en ce qu'elle est libre.
Rene Descartes on Knowledge
-
Attributed to Rene Descartes:
“The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries.”
-
Attributed to Rene Descartes:
“Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems.”
-
Attributed to Rene Descartes:
“There is nothing so far removed from us as to be beyond our reach, or so hidden that we cannot discover it.”
-
“No doubt you know that Galileo had been convicted not long ago by the Inquisition, and that his opinion on the movement of the Earth had been condemned as heresy. Now I will tell you that all things I explain in my treatise , among which is also that same opinion about the movement of the Earth, all depend on one another, and are based upon certain evident truths. Nevertheless, I will not for the ”
Letter to Marin Mersenne (end of Feb., 1634) as quoted by Amir Aczel , Pendulum: Leon Foucault and the Triumph of Science (2003) -
“M. Desargues puts me under obligations on account of the pains that it has pleased him to have in me, in that he shows that he is sorry that I do not wish to study more in geometry, but I have resolved to quit only abstract geometry, that is to say, the consideration of questions which serve only to exercise the mind , and this, in order to study another kind of geometry, which has for its object the explanation of the phenomena of nature... You know that all my physics is nothing else than geometry.”
Letter to Marin Mersenne (July 27, 1638) as quoted by Florian Cajori , A History of Mathematics (1893) letter dated in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes Vol. 3, The Correspondence (1991) ed. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch -
“Mr. Clerselier has written me that you are expecting from him my Meditations ... in order to present them to the queen of the land . ...If I had only been as wise as they say the savages persuaded themselves that the monkeys were, I never would have become known as a maker of books: Since it is said that they imagined that the monkeys could indeed speak, if they wanted to, but that they chose not ”
Letter to Pierre Chanut (Nov. 1, 1646) as quoted by Amir Aczel , Descartes' Secret Notebook (2005) citing René Descartes: Correspondance avec Elizabeth et autres lettres (1989) ed., Jean-Marie and M. Beysaade, pp. 245-246. -
“Me tenant comme je suis, un pied dans un pays et l'autre en un autre, je trouve ma condition très heureuse, en ce qu'elle est libre.”
Staying as I am, one foot in one country and the other in another, I find my condition very happy, in that it is free. | Letter to Elisabeth of Bohemia, Princess Palatine (Paris, June/July 1648)
Rene Descartes on Mind
-
“I think, therefore I am.”
Je pense, donc je suis. -
Attributed to Rene Descartes:
“It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well.”
-
Attributed to Rene Descartes:
“Cogito, ergo sum.”
-
Attributed to Rene Descartes:
“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.”
Rene Descartes on Nature
-
“No doubt you know that Galileo had been convicted not long ago by the Inquisition, and that his opinion on the movement of the Earth had been condemned as heresy. Now I will tell you that all things I explain in my treatise , among which is also that same opinion about the movement of the Earth, all depend on one another, and are based upon certain evident truths. Nevertheless, I will not for the world stand up against the authority of the Church. ...I have the desire to live in peace and to continue on the road on which I have started.”
Letter to Marin Mersenne (end of Feb., 1634) as quoted by Amir Aczel , Pendulum: Leon Foucault and the Triumph of Science (2003) -
“What I have given in the second book on the nature and properties of curved lines, and the method of examining them, is, it seems to me, as far beyond the treatment in the ordinary geometry, as the rhetoric of Cicero is beyond the a, b, c of children.”
Letter to Marin Mersenne (1637) as quoted by D. E. Smith & M. L. Latham Tr. The Geometry of René Descartes (1925)
Rene Descartes on Time
-
“M. Desargues puts me under obligations on account of the pains that it has pleased him to have in me, in that he shows that he is sorry that I do not wish to study more in geometry, but I have resolved to quit only abstract geometry, that is to say, the consideration of questions which serve only to exercise the mind , and this, in order to study another kind of geometry, which has for its object ”
Letter to Marin Mersenne (July 27, 1638) as quoted by Florian Cajori , A History of Mathematics (1893) letter dated in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes Vol. 3, The Correspondence (1991) ed. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch
Rene Descartes on Truth
-
“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.”
In order to seek truth, it is necessary once in the course of our life, to doubt, as far as possible, of all things.
Rene Descartes on Virtue
-
Attributed to Rene Descartes:
“The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues.”
-
Attributed to Rene Descartes:
“Conquer yourself rather than the world.”
-
Attributed to Rene Descartes:
“Whenever anyone has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that the offense cannot reach it.”
Things actually not said by Rene Descartes
A number of widely-shared lines are circulated as Rene Descartes but are in fact from someone else. Did Rene Descartes say these? No. Each entry below pairs the line with the person who actually wrote it.
-
Did Rene Descartes say this? No.
“Doubt is the origin of wisdom.”
Although widely attributed to Descartes — and consistent with the spirit of his methodic doubt — the Latin phrase 'Dubium sapientiae initium' has not been located in his published works or correspondence. The attribution appears to be a 19th-century or later summary of Cartesian method rather than a direct quotation.
-
Did Rene Descartes say this? No.
“An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why must the pessimist always run to blow it out?”
Michel de Saint-Pierre , as quoted in Cryptograms and Spygrams (1981) by Norma Gleason, p. 106; attributed to Descartes in The Athlete's Way : Training Your Mind and Body to Experience the Joy of Exercise (2008) by Christopher Bergland, p. 271.