“I would inquire of reasonable persons whether this principle: Matter is naturally wholly incapable of thought, and this other: I think, therefore I am, are in fact the same in the mind of Descartes, and in that of St. Augustine, who said the same thing twelve hundred years before.”

— Blaise Pascal

see St. Augustine, Civitate Dei, 1. XI, c. xxvi
The Art of Persuasion
Context: I would inquire of reasonable persons whether this principle: Matter is naturally wholly incapable of thought, and this other: I think, therefore I am, are in fact the same in the mind of Descartes, and in that of St. Augustine, who said the same thing twelve hundred years before.... I am far from affirming that Descartes is not the real author of it, even if he may have learned it only in reading this distinguished saint; for I know how much difference there is between writing a word by chance without making a longer and more extended reflection on it, and perceiving in this word an admirable series of conclusions, which prove the distinction between material and spiritual natures, and making of it a firm and sustained principle of a complete metaphysical system, as Descartes has pretended to do.... it is on this supposition that I say that this expression is as different in his writings from the saying in others who have said it by chance, as in a man full of life and strength, from a corpse.

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Blaise Pascal 144

French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Chri… 1623–1662

John Carroll (1944) Australian professor and author

Source: Break-Out from the Crystal Palace (1974), p. 40

“"I would rather err with the majority than in my own way." So thought St Augustine. I am of the reverse opinion.”

Karlheinz Deschner (1924–2014) German writer and activist

Ich will lieber mit den meisten irren als auf meine Weise. So dachte Augustinus. Ich denke umgekehrt.
deschner.info http://www.deschner.info/de/person/zitate.htm

“And he arrives at the cogito ergo sum, which St. Augustine had already anticipated… "I think therefore I am," can only mean "I think, therefore I am a thinker"; this being of "I am," which is deduced from "I think," is merely a knowing; this being is a knowledge, but not life. And the primary reality is not that I think, but that I live, for those also live who do not think. Although this living may not be a real living. God! what contradictions when we seek to join in wedlock life and reason!”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), II : The Starting-Point

“The fact is that five years ago I was, as near as possible, a different person to what I am tonight. I, as I am now, didn't exist at all. Will the same thing happen in the next five years? I hope so.”

Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967) English poet, diarist and memoirist

“Things take the time they take.
Don't worry.
How many roads did St. Augustine follow before he became St. Augustine?”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

“The Americans' 'open-mindedness', which is sometimes cited in their favor, is the other side of their interior formlessness. The same goes for their 'individualism'. Individualism and personality are not the same: the one belongs to the formless world of quantity, the other to the world of quality and hierarchy. The Americans are the living refutation of the Cartesian axiom, "I think, therefore I am": Americans do not think, yet they are. The American 'mind', puerile and primitive, lacks characteristic form and is therefore open to every kind of standardization.”

Julius Evola (1898–1974) Italian philosopher and esotericist

American "Civilization" (from "Civilta Americana") http://www.juliusevola.net/excerpts/American_%22Civilization%22.html

“With Descartes the Cogito ergo sum [I think, therefore I am] turns into Cogito ergo res sunt</i”

Étienne Gilson (1884–1978) French historian and philosopher

I think, therefore things are
Methodical Realism

“Whether they are allowed to be Whigg principles, or not, is a very small part of my concern. I think them exactly as such as the sober, honourable, and intelligent part in that party, have always professed. I think, I have shewn, beyond a possibility of debate, that they are exactly the same. But if any person…choose to think otherwise, and conceive that they are contrary to the Doctrines of their Whigg party,—be it so. I am certain, that they are principles of which no reasonable man or good citizen need be ashamed of. If they are Tory principles, I shall always wish to be thought a Tory, If the contrary of these principles be Whigg principles, I beg, that you, my Dear Friend will never consider me as belonging to that description.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Letter to Dr Richard Brocklesby (c. 1790s), quoted in R. B. McDowell (ed.), The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Volume IX: May 1796–July 1797 (Cambridge University Press, 1970), p. 446
Undated

“Actions may be laudable or blameable; but they cannot be reasonable: Laudable or blameable, therefore, are not the same with reasonable or unreasonable. The merit and demerit of actions frequently contradict, and sometimes controul our natural propensities. But reason has no such influence. Moral distinctions, therefore, are not the offspring of reason. Reason is wholly inactive, and can never be the source of so active a principle as conscience, or a sense of morals.”

David Hume book A Treatise of Human Nature

Part 1, Section 1
A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40), Book 3: Of morals

“.. You know that I think a society of impressionists would be a good thing of the same nature as the Society of the Twelve English Pre-Raphaelites, and I think that it could come into existence. Then I incline to think that the artists would guarantee mutually among themselves a livelihood, each consenting to give a considerable number of pictures to the Society, and that the gains as well as the losses should be taken in common.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Arles, France, Spring 1888; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 498), p 37
1880s, 1888

“I would inquire of reasonable persons whether this principle: Matter is naturally wholly incapable of thought, and this other: I think, therefore I am, are in fact the same in the mind of Descartes, and in that of St. Augustine, who said the same thing twelve hundred years before.”

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Blaise Pascal 144

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