Good sense is, of all things among men, the most equally distributed; for every one thinks himself so abundantly provided with it, that those even who are the most difficult to satisfy in everything else, do not usually desire a larger measure of this quality than they already possess.
Rene DescartesThese long chains of perfectly simple and easy reasonings by means of which geometers are accustomed to carry out their most difficult demonstrations had led me to fancy that everything that can fall under human knowledge forms a similar sequence; and that so long as we avoid accepting as true what is not so, and always preserve the right order of deduction of one thing from another, there can be nothing too remote to be reached in the end, or to well hidden to be discovered.
Rene DescartesI desire to live in peace and to continue the life I have begun under the motto 'to live well you must live unseen
Rene DescartesWe never understand a thing so well,and make it our own, as when we have discovered it for ourselves.
Rene DescartesEverybody thinks himself so well supplied with common sense that even those most difficult to please. . . never desire more of it than they already have.
Rene DescartesThe rainbow is such a remarkable phenomenon of nature, and its cause has been so meticulously sought after by inquiring minds throughout the ages, that I could not choose a more appropriate subject for demonstrating how, with the method I am using, we can arrive at knowledge not possessed at all by those whose writings are available to us.
Rene Descartes