"I desire to live in such a way that I can spend the rest of my life without having committed any fault."

"I consider that I possess no senses; I imagine that body, figure, extension, motion and place are but fictions of my mind."

"I suppose therefore that all I see is false. I believe that none of what my deceptive memory represents to me ever existed."

"I have always taken the greatest pleasure in seeking out and acquiring knowledge."

"I have never found anything in the works of the ancient philosophers that compares to the certainty I have found in mathematics."