But as soon as I thought this, I realized that even though I wanted to think that everything was false, I had to think I was here, that I existed: "I think, so I am" (Je pense, donc je suis).
And when I saw that this truth, "I think, therefore I am," was so clear and supported by so much evidence that no skeptic could come up with a reason to doubt it, no matter how far-fetched, I knew I could accept it as the first principle of the philosophy I was looking for.
The above excerpt comes from chapter 4 of the
Discourse
. Descartes language is so simple that it often reads as if it were a novel that you can't put down.