Learnt something knew while reading “Descartes Error” at the bar in the hotel (the guy at the bar showed no interest in making friends with me 🙂 – so I was reduced to reading a book from my book list 🙂 )
I always thought that the origin of “I think, therefore I am” was the Latin phrase “Cogito ergo sum”. Evidently, that is the popular version for English speaking people. The original words he wrote were “Ego cogito, ergo sum” [“Principles of Philosophy” (1644)]. And that is not even the original original!!! And that is what surprised me.
Did you know he actually came up with it seven years before this in a treatise written in French [“Discourse on the Method” (1637)]. Evidently, he first penned it as “je pense, donc je suis”.

BTW, if any one of know my parents or have a parent in India, you will probably relate to my sentiment that given their constant propensity to worry about silly things and think of problems and challenges that they can do nothing about, (“sobsomoy chinta hoy”) that this whole “I think, therefore I am” thing was something Descartes conjured up specifically for them.

Or so I think 🙂