"Among the earliest thinkers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, who employed their mental powers toward the destruction of old ideas and the up-building of new ones, ranks Rene Descartes. Though he professed orthodoxy in faith all his life, yet in science he was a profound sceptic. He found that the world's brightest thinkers had been long exercised in metaphysics, yet they had discovered nothing certain; nay, they had even flatly contradicted each other. ...The certainty of the conclusions in geometry and arithmetic brought out in his mind the contrast between the true and false ways of seeking the truth. He thereupon attempted to apply mathematical reasoning to all sciences."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Natural philosophersCatholics from FrancePhilosophers from FranceMathematicians from FrancePhysicists from France
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Descartes
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
René Descartes
107 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by René Descartes →
Related Quotes
"It appears then that the distance between one thing and another does not depend on any material thing between them, a…"
"What I have given in the second book on the nature and properties of curved lines, and the method of examining them, …"
"No more useful inquiry can be proposed than that which seeks to determine the nature and the scope of human knowledge…"
"Mr. Clerselier has written me that you are expecting from him my Meditations... in order to present them to the queen…"
"Mais apud me omnia fiunt Mathematicè in Natura"
"No doubt you know that Galileo had been convicted not long ago by the Inquisition, and that his opinion on the moveme…"
"M. Desargues puts me under obligations on account of the pains that it has pleased him to have in me, in that he show…"
"Je pense, donc je suis."
"Le bon sens est la chose du monde la mieux partagée : car chacun pense en être si bien pourvu, que ceux même qui sont…"
"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'…"