There Is Nothing More Ancient Than The

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.

The Only Secure Knowledge Is That I Exist.

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.

On The One Hand I Have A Clear And Distinct Idea Of Myself, In So Far As I Am A Thinking, Non-extended Thing; And On The Other Hand I Have A Distinct Idea Of Body, In So Far A This Is Simply An Extended, Non-thinking Thing. And, Accordingly, It Is Certain That I Am Really Distinct From My Body, And Exist Without It.

The Nature Of Matter, Or Body Considered In General, Consists Not In Its Being Something Which Is Hard Or Heavy Or Coloured, Or Which Affects The Senses In Any Way, But Simply In Its Being Something Which Is Extended In Length, Breadth And Depth.