Rene Descartes on Depression Quotes

"The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries."

"To live without philosophizing is in truth the same as keeping the eyes closed without attempting to open them."

"The greatest souls are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues; and those who walk very slowly may yet make much greater progress."

"When the soul is full of joy, it has more strength to resist the impressions of the body."

"When we are in health, and the air is serene, we feel in ourselves a joy which comes from no external cause."

"I realized that it was necessary, once in the course of my life, to demolish everything completely and start again right from the foundations."

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

"The chief use of prudence or self-control is that it teaches us to be masters of our passions."

"Reason is the only thing that makes us men, and distinguishes us from the beasts."

"The will is by its nature so free that it can never be constrained."

"We should never allow ourselves to be persuaded except by the evidence of our reason."

"The sadness that comes from a lack of hope is the most dangerous of all the passions."

"Common sense is the best distributed commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it."

"The soul's primary remedy against the passions is to consider the reasons for not being troubled by them."

"The soul's impact on the body is such that a firm resolution to think of something else can often dissipate the most painful passions."

"The mind is so dependent on the temper and disposition of the bodily organs that, if it is possible to find a means of making men wiser and more skillful, I believe that it is in medicine that it must be sought."

"The soul is more easily moved by those passions that have to do with the body than by those that it has of itself."

"In order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn, than to contemplate."

"He who lives hidden lives well."

"Sadness is an unpleasant languor, in which consists the discomfort which the soul receives from the evil, or the defect, which the impressions of the brain represent to it."

"Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power."

"The soul can have its own pleasures; but as for those which are common to it and the body, they depend entirely on the passions."

"It is useful to know something of the manners of different nations, that we may be able to form a more correct judgment regarding our own."

"The long chains of simple and easy reasonings by means of which geometers are accustomed to reach the conclusions of their most difficult demonstrations."

"There is nothing so far removed from us as to be beyond our reach, or so hidden that we cannot discover it."

"I should like to have you believe that the things I have written are not the results of a few hours' labor, but of many years of meditation."

"If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things."

"Whenever anyone has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that the offense cannot reach it."

"Melancholy is a passion which is not only harmful to the body, but also to the soul, because it takes away the strength to act."

"Those who have the strongest souls are those whose will can most easily conquer the passions and stop the movements of the body which accompany them."

"A man who is truly generous has no reason to fear that his will should fail him, provided he is resolved to use it well."

"It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well."

"Conquer yourself rather than the world, and change your desires rather than the order of the world."