“Should the soul of a prince, carrying with it the consciousness of the prince’s past life, enter and inform the body of a cobbler as soon as deserted by his own soul, everyone sees, he would be the same person with the prince, accountable only for the prince’s actions.”

“Every sensory experience I have ever thought I was having while awake I can also think of myself as sometimes having while asleep. Since I do not believe that what I seem to perceive in sleep comes from things located outside me, I did not see why I should be any more inclined to believe this of what I think I perceive while awake.

I have convinced myself that there is absolutely nothing in the world, no sky, no earth, no minds, no bodies. Does it now follow that I too do not exist? No: if I convinced myself of something then I certainly existed. ... This proposition - I am, I exist - is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind.

I know that everything which I clearly and distinctly understand is capable of being created by God so as to correspond exactly with my understanding of it. Hence the fact that I can clearly and distinctly understand one thing apart from another is enough to make me certain that the two things are distinct.”

“it seems every determination of movement happens from the impulsion of a thing moved, according to the manner in which it is pushed by that which moves it ... Contact is required for [this]. ... contact seems to me incompatible with the idea of an immaterial thing.”