Blaise Pascal Quotes
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Continuous eloquence wearies. Grandeur must be abandoned to be appreciated. Continuity in everything is unpleasant. Cold is agreeable, that we may get warm.
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Those who profess contempt for men, and put them on a level with beasts, yet wish to be admired and believed by men, and contradict themselves by their own feelings--their nature, which is stronger than all, convincing them of the greatness of man more forcibly than reason convinces them of his baseness.
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We feel neither extreme heat nor extreme cold; qualities that are in excess are so much at variance with our feelings that they are impalpable: we do not feel them, though we suffer from their effects.
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To find recreation in amusements is not happiness; for this joy springs from alien and extrinsic sources, and is therefore dependent upon and subject to interruption by a thousand accidents, which may minister inevitable affliction.
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Custom creates the whole of equity, for the simple reason that it is accepted.
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Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte.
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The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing. We feel it in a thousand things. I say that the heart naturally loves the Universal Being, and naturally loves itself; and it gives itself to one or the other, and hardens itself against one or the other, as it chooses...it is the heart that feels God, not the reason; this is faith.
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Everyone, without exception, is searching for happiness.
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God has given us evidence sufficiently clear to convince those with an open heart and mind.
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Our senses perceive no extreme. Too much sound deafens us; too much light dazzles us; too great distance or proximity hinders ourview. Too great length and too great brevity of discourse tends to obscurity; too much truth is paralyzing.... In short, extremes are for us as though they were not, and we are not within their notice. They escape us, or we them.
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People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive.
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The art of persuasion consists as much in that of pleasing as in that of convincing, so much more are men governed by caprice than by reason!
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In order to enter into a real knowledge of your condition, consider it in this image: A man was cast by a tempest upon an unknown island, the inhabitants of which were in trouble to find their king, who was lost; and having a strong resemblance both in form and face to this king, he was taken for him, and acknowledged in this capacity by all the people.
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The best books are those, which those who read them believe they themselves could have written.
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Knowledge has two extremes. The first is the pure natural ignorance in which all men find themselves at birth. The other extreme is that reached by great minds, who, having run through all that men can know, find they know nothing, and come back again to that same natural ignorance from which they set out; this is a learned ignorance which is conscious of itself.
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I cannot judge my work while I am doing it. I have to do as painters do, stand back and view it from a distance, but not too great a distance. How great? Guess.
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We never love a person, but only qualities.
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It is not from space that I must seek my dignity, but from the government of my thought. I shall have no more if I possess worlds. By space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an atom; by thought I comprehend the world.
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Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for our miseries. Yet it is itself the greatest of our miseries.
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Curiosity is nothing more than vanity. More often than not we only seek knowledge to show it off.
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All of our miseries prove our greatness. They are the miseries of a dethroned monarch.
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Some vices only lay hold of us by means of others, and these, like branches, fall on removal of the trunk.
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Plurality which is not reduced to unity is confusion; unity which does not depend on plurality is tyranny.
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It is not your strength and your natural power that subjects all these people to you. Do not pretend then to rule them by force or to treat them with harshness. Satisfy their reasonable desires; alleviate their necessities; let your pleasure consist in being beneficent; advance them as much as you can, and you will act like the true king of desire.