Rene Descartes Quotes About Mathematics

Quotes about: Mathematics

• Perfect numbers like perfect men are very rare.

  Rene Descartes

  Math, Men, Numbers

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

  Rene Descartes

  Powerful, Knowledge, Math

  RENE DESCARTES (1952). “RULES FOR THE DIRECTION OF THE MIND DISCOURSE ON THE METHOD MEDITATIONS ON FIRST PHILOSOPHY OBJECTIONS AGAINST THE MEDITATIONS AND REPLIES THE GEOMETRY”

• With me, everything turns into mathematics.

  Rene Descartes

  Math, Mathematics, Mathematical

• 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.

  Rene Descartes

  Nature, Math, Animal

• I concluded that I might take as a general rule the principle that all things which we very clearly and obviously conceive are true: only observing, however, that there is some difficulty in rightly determining the objects which we distinctly conceive.

  Rene Descartes

  Math, Principles, Might

• 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.

  Rene Descartes

  Fall, Mean, Math

• If I found any new truths in the sciences, I can say that they follow from, or depend on, five or six principal problems which I succeeded in solving and which I regard as so many battles where the fortunes of war were on my side.

  Rene Descartes

  War, Math, Battle

• When writing about transcendental issues, be transcendentally clear.

  Rene Descartes

  Writing, Math, Issues

• 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'.

  Rene Descartes

  Stars, Science, Light

• I hope that posterity will judge me kindly, not only as to the things which I have explained, but also to those which I have intentionally omitted so as to leave to others the pleasure of discovery.

  Rene Descartes

  Math, Science, Discovery

  Rene Descartes (2007). “The Geometry of Rene Descartes”, p.240, Cosimo, Inc.

• I accept no principles of physics which are not also accepted in mathematics.

  Rene Descartes

  Principles, Physics, Accepted

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin