Quotes from Meditations on First Philosophy

Quotations follow the John Cottingham translation (Cambridge University Press, 2017) — our recommended edition.

1. 2

   this proposition (pronunciatum) I am, I exist, is necessarily true each time it is expressed by me, or conceived in my mind.

2. 3

   I will suppose, then, not that Deity, who is sovereignly good and the fountain of truth, but that some malignant demon, who is at once exceedingly potent and deceitful, has employed all his artifice to deceive me.

3. 4

   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.

4. 5

   Doubtless, then, I exist, since I am deceived; and, let him deceive me as he may, he can never bring it about that I am nothing, so long as I shall be conscious that I am something.

5. 6

   I perceive so clearly that there exist no certain marks by which the state of waking can ever be distinguished from sleep.

6. 7

   But what then am I? A thinking thing, it has been said. But what is a thinking thing? It is a thing that doubts, understands, [conceives], affirms, denies, wills, refuses; that imagines also, and perceives.

7. 8

   SEVERAL years have now elapsed since I first became aware that I had accepted, even from my youth, many false opinions for true, and that consequently what I afterward based on such principles was highly doubtful.

8. 9

   the necessity of undertaking once in my life to rid myself of all the opinions I had adopted, and of commencing anew the work of building from the foundation, if I desired to establish a firm and abiding superstructure in the sciences.

9. 10

   Archimedes, that he might transport the entire globe from the place it occupied to another, demanded only a point that was firm and immovable; so, also, I shall be entitled to entertain the highest expectations, if I am fortunate enough to discover only one thing that is certain and indubitable.

10. 11

    it is certain that I, [that is, my mind, by which I am what I am], is entirely and truly distinct from my body, and may exist without it.

11. 12

    Nature likewise teaches me by these sensations of pain, hunger, thirst, etc., that I am not only lodged in my body as a pilot in a vessel, but that I am besides so intimately conjoined, and as it were intermixed with it, that my mind and body compose a certain unity.

12. 13

    It is the mind alone (mens, Lat., entendement, F.) which perceives it.

13. 14

    the existence can no more be separated from the essence of God, than the idea of a mountain from that of a valley.

14. 15

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