If ... It Is Not In My

Omnia Apud Me Mathematica Fiunt.

Archimedes, That He Might Transport The Entire Globe ... 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.

How Can You Be Certain That Your Whole Life Is Not A Dream?

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.

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.