Quotes from Meditations on First Philosophy

“It is only prudent never to place complete confidence in that by which we have even once been deceived.”
― René Descartes, quote from Meditations on First Philosophy

“Dubium sapientiae initium. (Doubt is the origin of wisdom.)”
― René Descartes, quote from Meditations on First Philosophy

“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.”
― René Descartes, quote from Meditations on First Philosophy

“Some years ago I was struck by the large number of falsehoods that I had accepted as true in my childhood, and by the highly doubtful nature of the whole edifice that I had subsequently based on them. I realized that it was necessary, once in the course of my life, to demolish everything completely and start again right from the foundations if I wanted to establish anything at all in the sciences that was stable and likely to last.”
― René Descartes, quote from Meditations on First Philosophy

“أرى أن جميع من أنعم الله عليم بنعمة العقل يجب أن يستعملوه قبل كل شيء في محاولة معرفة الله ومعرفة أنفسهم، وهذا هو الأمر الذي اتفقت عليه جمهرة الناظرين، والذي وفقني الله إلى أن أبلغ فيه ما يرضيني تمام الرضا.”
― René Descartes, quote from Meditations on First Philosophy

“But what then am I? A thing that thinks. What is that? A thing that doubts, understand, affirms, denies, wills, refuses, and that also imagines and senses.”
― René Descartes, quote from Meditations on First Philosophy

“Whatever I have up till now accepted as most true and assured I have gotten either from the senses or through the senses. But from time to time I have found that the senses deceive, and it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once.”
― René Descartes, quote from Meditations on First Philosophy

“When I turn my mind's eye upon myself, I understand that I am a thing which is incomplete and dependent on another and which aspires without limit to ever greater and better things...”
― René Descartes, quote from Meditations on First Philosophy

“Whence then come my errors? They come from the sole fact that since the will is much wider in its range and compass than the understanding, I do not restrain it within the same bounds, but extend it also to things which I do not understand: and as the will is of itself indifferent to these, it easily falls into error and sin, and chooses the evil for the good, or the false for the true.”
― René Descartes, quote from Meditations on First Philosophy

“And what more am I? I look for aid to the imagination. [But how mistakenly!] I am not that assemblage of limbs we call the human body; I am not a subtle penetrating air distributed throughout all these members; I am not a wind, a fire, a vapor, a breath or anything at all that I can image. I am supposing all these things to be nothing. Yet I find, while so doing, that I am still assured that I am a something.”
― René Descartes, quote from Meditations on First Philosophy

“ينبغي لمن يحاول الارتفاع الي معرفه تجاوز مرتبة العامه ان لايلتمس في صيغ الكلام التي ابتدعتها تلك العامه الا مواطن الشك”
― René Descartes, quote from Meditations on First Philosophy

“The destruction of the foundations necessarily brings down the whole edifice.”
― René Descartes, quote from Meditations on First Philosophy

“For the very fact that my knowledge is increasing little by little is the most certain argument for its imperfection.”
― René Descartes, quote from Meditations on First Philosophy

“I am not a collection of members which we call the human body: I am not a subtle air distributed through these members, I am not a wind, a fire, a vapour, a breath, nor anything at all which I can imagine or conceive; because I have assumed that all these were nothing. Without changing that supposition I find that I only leave myself certain of the fact that I am somewhat.”
― René Descartes, quote from Meditations on First Philosophy

“I fear being shaken out of them because I am afraid that my peaceful sleep may be followed by hard labour when I wake, and that I shall have to struggle not in the light but in the imprisoning darkness of the problems I have raised.”
― René Descartes, quote from Meditations on First Philosophy

“Je puis me persuader d'avoir été fait tel par la nature que je puisse aisément me tromper même dans les choses que je crois comprendre avec le plus d'évidence et de certitude.”
― René Descartes, quote from Meditations on First Philosophy

“Suppose [a person] had a basket full of apples and, being worried that some of the apples were rotten, wanted to take out the rotten ones to prevent the rot spreading. How would he proceed? Would he not begin by tipping the whole lot out of the basket? And would not the next step be to cast his eye over each apple in turn, and pick up and put back in the basket only those he saw to be sound, leaving the others? In just the same way, those who have never philosophized correctly have various opinions in their minds which they have begun to store up since childhood, and which they therefore have reason to believe may in many cases be false. They then attempt to separate the false beliefs from the others, so as to prevent their contaminating the rest and making the whole lot uncertain. Now the best way they can accomplish this is to reject all their beliefs together in one go, as if they were all uncertain and false. They can then go over each belief in turn and re-adopt only those which they recognize to be true and indubitable.”
― René Descartes, quote from Meditations on First Philosophy

“All that I have, up to this moment, accepted as possessed of the highest truth and certainty, I received either from or through the senses. I observed, however, that these sometimes misled us; and it is the part of prudence not to place absolute confidence in that by which we have even once been deceived.”
― René Descartes, quote from Meditations on First Philosophy

“Thus the perception of the infinite is somehow prior in me to the perception of the finite, that is, my perception of God is prior to my perception of myself. For how would I understand that I doubt and that I desire, that is, that I lack something and that I am not wholly perfect, unless there were some idea in me of a more perfect being, by comparison with which I might recognize my defects?”
― René Descartes, quote from Meditations on First Philosophy

“¿hay acaso algo más íntimo o más interior que el dolor?”
― René Descartes, quote from Meditations on First Philosophy

“But doubtless I did exist, if I persuaded myself of something. But there is some deceiver or other who is supremely powerful and supremely sly and who is always deliberately deceiving me. Then too there is no doubt that I exist, if he is deceiving me. And let him do his best at deception, he will never bring it about that I am nothing so long as I shall think that I am something. Thus, after everything has been most carefully weighed, it must finally be established that this pronouncement “I am, I exist” is necessarily true every time I utter it or conceive it in my mind.”
― René Descartes, quote from Meditations on First Philosophy

“Porque por naturaleza, considerada en general, no entiendo otra cosa sino Dios mismo, o bien el orden y la disposición que Dios ha establecido en las cosas creadas. Y por mi naturaleza en particular, no entiendo otra cosa sino la complexión o reunión de todo aquello que Dios me ha dado.”
― René Descartes, quote from Meditations on First Philosophy

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