Quote collection
156 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"I suppose therefore that all things I see are illusions; I believe that nothing has ever existed of everything my lying memory tells me. I think I have no senses. I believe that body, shape, extension, motion, location are functions. What is there then that can be taken as true? Perhaps only this one thing, that nothing at all is certain."
"Science is practical philosophy."
"I can doubt everything, except one thing, and that is the very fact that I doubt. Simply put - I think, therefore I am"
"Variant: When it is not in our power to follow what is true, we ought to follow what is most probable."
"And as it is the most generous souls who have most gratitude, it is those who have most pride, and who are most base and infirm, who most allow themselves to be carried away by anger and hatred."
"Everything is self-evident."
"Desire awakens only to things that are thought possible."
"If I simply refrain from making a judgment in cases where I do not perceive the truth with sufficient clarity and distinctness, then it is clear that I am behaving correctly and avoiding error."
"Every man is indeed bound to do what he can to promote the good of others, and a man who is of no use to anyone is strictly worthless."
"There is nothing so far removed from us as to be beyond our reach, or so hidden that we cannot discover it."
"In order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn, than to contemplate."
"So far, I have been a spectator in this theater which is the world, but I am now about to mount the stage, and I come forward masked."
"Few look for truth; many prowl about for a reputation of profundity by arrogantly challenging whichever arguments are the best."
"Common sense is the best distributed thing in the world, for we all think we possess a good share of it."
"... moral certainty is certainty which is sufficient to regulate our behaviour, or which measures up to the certainty we have on matters relating to the conduct of life which we never normally doubt, though we know that it is possible, absolutely speaking, that they may be false."
"There is nothing more ancient than the truth."
"Just as we believe by faith that the greatest happiness of the next life consists simply in the contemplation of this divine majesty, likewise we experience that we derive the greatest joy of which we are capable in this life from the same contemplation, even though it is much less perfect."
"I experienced in myself a certain capacity for judging which I have doubtless received from God, like all the other things that I possess; and as He could not desire to deceive me, it is clear that He has not given me a faculty that will lead me to err if I use it aright."
"But I cannot forget that, at other times I have been deceived in sleep by similar illusions; and, attentively considering those cases, I perceive so clearly that there exist no certain marks by which the state of waking can ever be distinguished from sleep, that I feel greatly astonished; and in amazement I almost persuade myself that I am now dreaming."
"At last I will devote myself sincerely and without reservation to the general demolition of my opinions."