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Rene Descartes

Rene Descartes Quotes

Philosopher

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Famous Rene Descartes Quotes

“Mathematics is a more powerful instrument of knowledge than any other that has been bequeathed to us by human agency.”

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Book:RULES FOR THE DIRECTION OF THE MIND DISCOURSE ON THE METHOD MEDITATIONS ON FIRST PHILOSOPHY OBJECTIONS AGAINST THE MEDITATIONS AND REPLIES THE GEOMETRY
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“If we possessed a thorough knowledge of all the parts of the seed of any animal (e.g. man), we could from that alone, be reasons entirely mathematical and certain, deduce the whole conformation and figure of each of its members, and, conversely if we knew several peculiarities of this conformation, we would from those deduce the nature of its seed.”

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Author:Rene Descartes
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“These 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.”

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Author:Rene Descartes
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“As I considered the matter carefully it gradually came to light that all those matters only were referred to mathematics in which order and measurements are investigated, and that it makes no difference whether it be in numbers, figures, stars, sounds or any other object that the question of measurement arises. I saw consequently that there must be some general science to explain that element as a whole which gives rise to problems about order and measurement, restricted as these are to no special subject matter. This, I perceived was called 'universal mathematics'.”

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Author:Rene Descartes
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