Conquer Yourself Rather Than The World.

For I Found Myself Embarrassed With So Many Doubts And Errors That It Seemed To Me That The Effort To Instruct Myself Had No Effect Other Than Th Eincreasing Discovery Of My Own Ignorance

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.

[about Pierre De Fermat] It Cannot Be Denied That He Has Had Many Exceptional Ideas, And That He Is A Highly Intelligent Man. For My Part, However, I Have Always Been Taught To Take A Broad Overview Of Things, In Order To Be Able To Deduce From Them General Rules, Which Might Be Applicable Elsewhere.

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.

...it Is Certain That I Am Really Distinct From My Body, And Can Exist Without It.