René Descartes
Born: 03-30-1596
René Descartes was a 17th-century French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist, renowned as the "Father of Modern Philosophy." His groundbreaking work, "Meditations on First Philosophy," laid the foundation for modern Western thought. Descartes famously coined "Cogito, ergo sum" ("I think, therefore I am") and significantly contributed to mathematics with Cartesian coordinate geometry. His analytical approach profoundly influenced the development of scientific methodology and rationalism.
Book summaries for books written by René Descartes
Quotes
I think, therefore I am.
It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well.
Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it.
The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries.
The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues.
Common sense is the most fairly distributed thing in the world, for each one thinks he is so well-endowed with it that even those who are hardest to satisfy in all other matters are not in the habit of desiring more of it than they already have.
It is desirable to be well descended, but the glory belongs to our ancestors.
The first precept was never to accept a thing as true until I knew it as such without a single doubt.
I am accustomed to sleep and in my dreams to imagine the same things that lunatics imagine when awake.
Perfect numbers, like perfect men, are very rare.
Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems.
The power of judging aright and of distinguishing truth from error...