The Only Thing We Have

There Is Nothing So Far Removed From Us As To Be Beyond Our Reach, Or So Hidden That We Cannot Discover It.

Doubt Is The Origin Of Wisdom

Common Sense Is The Most Fairly Distributed Thing In The World, For Each One Thinks He Is So Well-endowed With It That Even Those Who Are Hardest To Satisfy In All Other Matters Are Not In The Habit Of Desiring More Of It Than They Already Have.

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.

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