Illusory Joy Is Often Worth More Than

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'.

The Greatest Minds, As They Are Capable Of The Highest Excellencies, Are Open Likewise To The Greatest Aberrations; And Those Who Travel Very Slowly May Yet Make Far Greater Progress, Provided They Keep Always To The Straight Road, Than Those Who, While They Run, Forsake It.

Whatever I Have Up Till Now Accepted As Most True And Assured I Have Gotten Either From The Senses Or Through The Senses. But From Time To Time I Have Found That The Senses Deceive, And It Is Prudent Never To Trust Completely Those Who Have Deceived Us Even Once.

My Third Maxim Was To Try Always To Conquer Myself Rather Than Fortune, And To Change My Desires Rather Than The Order Of The World, And Generally To Accustom Myself To Believing That There Is Nothing Entirely In Our Power Except Our Thoughts, So That After We Have Done Our Best Regarding Things External To Us, Everything In Which We Do Not Succeed Is For Us Absolutely Impossible.

In Philosophy, When We Make Use Of False Principles, We Depart The Farther From The Knowledge Of Truth And Wisdom Exactly In Proportion To The Care With Which We Cultivate Them, And Apply Ourselves To The Deduction Of Diverse Consequences From Them, Thinking That We Are Philosophizing Well, While We Are Only Departing The Farther From The Truth; From Which It Must Be Inferred That They Who Have Learned The Least Of All That Has Been Hitherto Distinguished By The Name Of Philosophy Are The Most Fitted For The Apprehension Of Truth.