Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The chief cause of human errors is to be found in the prejudices picked up in childhood.
Each problem that I solved became a rule, which served afterwards to solve other problems.
When it is not in our power to follow what is true, we ought to follow what is most probable.
The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries.
Whenever anyone has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that the offense cannot reach it.
For to be possessed of a vigorous mind is not enough; the prime requisite is rightly to apply it.
We never understand a thing so well,and make it our own, as when we have discovered it for ourselves.
The first precept was never to accept a thing as true until I knew it as such without a single doubt.
An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why must the pessimist always run to blow it out?
I am accustomed to sleep and in my dreams to imagine the same things that lunatics imagine when awake.
Variant: When it is not in our power to follow what is true, we ought to follow what is most probable.
It is only prudent never to place complete confidence in that by which we have even once been deceived.
It is contrary to reasoning to say that there is a vacuum or space in which there is absolutely nothing.
At last I will devote myself sincerely and without reservation to the general demolition of my opinions.
There is nothing so strange and so unbelievable that it has not been said by one philosopher or another.
Common sense is the best distributed thing in the world, for we all think we possess a good share of it.
I was convinced that our beliefs are based much more on custom and example than on any certain knowledge.
There is nothing so far removed from us as to be beyond our reach, or so hidden that we cannot discover it.
It is to the body alone that we should attribute everything that can be observed in us to oppose our reason.
Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has.
Divide each difficulty at hand into as many pieces as possible and as could be required to better solve them.
How do we know that anything really exists, that anything is really the way it seems ot us through our senses?
You just keep pushing. You just keep pushing. I made every mistake that could be made. But I just kept pushing.
To live without philosophizing is in truth the same as keeping the eyes closed without attempting to open them.
I desire to live in peace and to continue the life I have begun under the motto 'to live well you must live unseen
The senses deceive from time to time, and it is prudent never to trust wholly those who have deceived us even once.
Mathematics is a more powerful instrument of knowledge than any other that has been bequeathed to us by human agency.
I can doubt everything, except one thing, and that is the very fact that I doubt. Simply put - I think, therefore I am
It's the familiar love-hate syndrome of seduction: "I don't really care what it is I say, I care only that you like it."
One cannot conceive anything so strange and so implausible that it has not already been said by one philosopher or another.
Common sense is the most widely shared commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it.
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the self-same well from which your laughter rises was often-times filled with your tears.
Few look for truth; many prowl about for a reputation of profundity by arrogantly challenging whichever arguments are the best.
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.
There is a little gland in the brain in which the soul exercises its functions in a more particular way than in the other parts.
Let whoever can do so deceive me, he will never bring it about that I am nothing, so long as I continue to think I am something.
The principal effect of the passions is that they incite and persuade the mind to will the events for which they prepared the body.
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.
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.
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.
If ... it is not in my power to arrive at the knowledge of any truth, I may at least do what is in my power, namely, suspend judgement.
There is a great difference between mind and body insomuch as body is by nature always divisible, and the mind is entirely indivisible.
The entire method consists in the order and arrangement of the things to which the mind's eye must turn so that we can discover some truth.
The two operations of our understanding, intuition and deduction, on which alone we have said we must rely in the acquisition of knowledge.
The mind effortlessly and automatically takes in new ideas, which remain in limbo until verified or rejected by conscious, rational analysis.
Even if I were to suppose that I was dreaming and whatever I saw or imagined was false, yet I could not deny that ideas were truly in my mind.
A person has two passions for love and abhorrence. A big disposition to excessiveness has just a love, because it is more ardent and stronger.
Intuition is the undoubting conception of a pure and attentive mind, which arises from the light of reason alone, and is more certain than deduction.
Everybody thinks himself so well supplied with common sense that even those most difficult to please. . . never desire more of it than they already have.
Even those who have the weakest souls could acquire absolute mastery over all their passions if we employed sufficient ingenuity in training and guiding them.