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I should like you to consider that these functions (including passion, memory, and imagination) follow from the mere arrangement of the machine’s organs every bit as naturally as the movements of a clock or other automaton follow from the arrangement of its counter-weights and wheels.

— René Descartes Le Homme (The Treatise on Man) (1662)

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More quotes by René Descartes

In order to seek truth, it is necessary once in the course of our life, to doubt, as far as possible, of all things.

Principles of Philosophy (1644)

I was not, thank heaven, in a condition which compelled me to make merchandise of Science for the bettering of my fortune.

I suppose the body to be nothing but a statue or machine made of earth, which God forms with the explicit intention of making it as much as possible like us.

Le Homme (The Treatise on Man) (1662)

If you would be a real seeker after truth, you must at least once in your life doubt, as far as possible, all things.

The two operations of our understanding, intuition and deduction, on which alone we have said we must rely in the acquisition of knowledge.

Key Philosophical Writings (1997)

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