Divide each difficulty at hand into as many pieces as possible and as could be required to better solve them.

Here I beg you to observe in passing that the scruples that prevented ancient writers from using arithmetical terms in geometry, and which can only be a consequence of their inability to perceive clearly the relation between these two subjects, introduced much obscurity and confusion into their explanations.

Before examining this more carefully and investigating its consequences, I want to dwell for a moment in the contemplation of God, to ponder His attributes in me, to see, admire, and adore the beauty of His boundless light, insofar as my clouded insight allows. Believing that the supreme happiness of the other life consists wholly of the contemplation of divine greatness, I now find that through less perfect contemplation of the same sort I can gain the greatest joy available in this life.

And thereby make ourselves, as it were, the lords and masters of nature.

The first precept was never to accept a thing as true until I knew it as such without a single doubt.

Everything is self-evident.

For each of us there is a set limit to our intellectual powers which we cannot pass.