Portrait of René Descartes

René Descartes

1596–1650

French philosopher and mathematician

Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems.

TOPICS: learning, problems

Of all things, good sense is the most fairly distributed: everyone thinks he is so well supplied with it that even those who are the hardest to satisfy in every other respect never desire more of it than they already have.

TOPICS: humor

With me everything turns into mathematics.

TOPICS: mathematicians

Perfect numbers like perfect men are very rare.

TOPICS: humor, perfect numbers

Intuition is the conception of an attentive mind, so clear, so distinct, and so effortless that we cannot doubt what we have so conceived.

TOPICS: intuition, philosophy, psychology