Rene Descartes Quotes

Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum -- "I think that I think, therefore I think that I am;" as close an approach to certainty as any philosopher has yet made.

I think, therefore I am' is the statement of an intellectual who underrates toothaches.

I think, therefore matter is capable of thinking.

They do not think, therefore they are not.

I think I exist, therefore I exist. I think.

I think I am, therefore, I am... I think.

A long time ago, Descartes sad, “I think, therefore I am.” But if you are not thinking, what?

I do not think therefore I am a moustache

I think that I think, therefore I think that I am.

What then do you call your soul? What idea have you of it? You cannot of yourselves, without revelation, admit the existence within you of anything but a power unknown to you of feeling and thinking.

I think, therefore I am.

I assure you, Constable Morgan, I am quite sane, as I understand the word, perhaps the sanest person in this room, for I suffer from no illusions. I have freed myself, you see, from the pretense that burdens most men. Much like our prey, I do not impose order where there is none; I do not pretend there is any more than what there is, or that you and I are anything more than what we are. That is the essence of their beauty, Morgan, the aboriginal purity of their being, and why I admire them.

We are not our body, that we have a body, but a body is not who we are. We are that which possesses a body, and that which stands outside of the body, if you please, and exists quite apart and independent from it, and uses the body as a device or tool.

Perhaps people need to understand some history here. Rene Descartes, in the late 16th, early 17th century, postulated that body, mind, physicality and spirituality belonged to different realms of reality that didn't interact. On a positive side, it got the Inquisition off the backs of the intellectuals and they quit burning them at the stake for disagreeing with the Church.

Meditation is object-less. If you use any object, then it is not meditation; it becomes thinking. It becomes contemplation; it becomes reflection, but not meditation. This is the most essential point to be understood. This is the essence of a meditative state: that it is object-less. Only consciousness is there, but not conscious ABOUT anything. Consciousness without being conscious of anything - this is the nature of meditation.

The late British-born philosopher Alan Watts, in one of his wonderful lectures on eastern philosophy, used this analogy: "If I draw a circle, most people, when asked what I have drawn, will say I have drawn a circle or a disc, or a ball. Very few people will say I've drawn a hole in the wall, because most people think of the inside first, rather than thinking of the outside. But actually these two sides go together--you cannot have what is 'in here' unless you have what is out there.' " In other words, where we are is vital to who we are.

You are not a human being. You are not your body, you are not your mind, and you are not your soul. These are things that You have. The You that has these things - indeed, that has given your Self these things - is far bigger than any of them, and even all of them put together.

I think part of Western metaphysical dualism is, we're always being asked to choose one over the other.

I think, therefore I am ... not here.

I see evil when I look in my shaving mirror. It is, philosophically, present everywhere in the universe in order, apparently, to highlight the existence of good. I think there is more to this theory, but I tend to burst out laughing at this point.

--Why are we fighting them? --They're mad. We're sane. --How do we know? --That we're sane? --Yes. --Am I sane? --To all appearances. --And you, do you consider yourself sane? --I do. --Well, there you have it. --But don't they also consider themselves sane? --I think they know. Deep down. That they're not sane. --How must that make them feel? --Terrible, I should think. They must fight ever more fiercely, in order to deny what they know to be true. That they are not sane.

Looking back is a form of insanity, given that I could really never understand what everybody else was thinking. I find these days that I'm much more efficient when I just focus on what I need to do in order to move my family forward and get the focus off me.

I think I need to face what I could have been in order to understand and accept what I am.

The essence of life consists in thinking, and being conscious of one's soul.