Method

"... I have formed a Method that gives me the means, as I think, of gradually augmenting my knowledge, and of raising it little by little to the highest point which the mediocrity of my talents and the brief duration of my life will permit me to reach. For I have always reaped from it such fruits that, although I have been accustomed to think lowly enough of myslef, and altough when I look with the eye of a philosopher at the varied courses and pursuits of mankind at large, I find scarcely one which does not appear vain and useless, I nevertheless derive the highest satisfaction from the progress I conceive myself to have already made ..."
- Rene Descartes (Discourse on Method)