The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries.
Rene DescartesRead
I am indeed amazed when I consider how weak my mind is and how prone to error.
Interpretation
Descartes expresses a sense of wonder at human fallibility and the limitations of the mind.
In this quote, RenΓ© Descartes reflects on the inherent weaknesses and errors of the human mind. He acknowledges the frailty of human thought processes and highlights the importance of critical thinking and self-awareness when engaging with knowledge and reasoning.
In practice
A philosophical discussion on the limitations of human understanding.
The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries.
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.
Mathematics is a more powerful instrument of knowledge than any other that has been bequeathed to us by human agency.
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.
I am accustomed to sleep and in my dreams to imagine the same things that lunatics imagine when awake.
The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues.
Since we do not take a man on his past history, we do not refuse him because of his past history. I never met a man who was thoroughly bad. There is always some good in him if he gets a chance.
Aristotle may be regarded as the cultural barometer of Western history. Whenever his influence dominated the scene, it paved the way for one of history's brilliant eras; whenever it fell, so did mankind.
Like ultraviolet rays memory shows to each man in the book of life a script that invisibly and prophetically glosses the text.
I think one of the most important changes of our time has been our attitude to fear. Every civilisation defends itself by keeping fears out and saying 'we protect you from fear'. But it also produces new fears and throughout history people have changed the kind of fears which have worried them.
The totalitarian states can do great things, but there is one thing they cannot do: they cannot give the factory-worker a rifle and tell him to take it home and keep it in his bedroom. That rifle, hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or laborer's cottage, is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there.
The reality we live in is selected by our conceptual definitions. You and I may be in the same physical space, but each of us will see it as entirely different.
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