-
The end point of rationality is to demonstrate the limits of rationality.
Blaise Pascal -
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.
Blaise Pascal
-
Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte.
Blaise Pascal -
We never love a person, but only qualities.
Blaise Pascal -
Flies are so mighty that they win battles, paralyse our minds, eat up our bodies.
Blaise Pascal -
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.
Blaise Pascal -
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.
Blaise Pascal -
God has given us evidence sufficiently clear to convince those with an open heart and mind.
Blaise Pascal
-
Everyone, without exception, is searching for happiness.
Blaise Pascal -
People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive.
Blaise Pascal -
It is the contest that delights us, and not the victory.
Blaise Pascal -
Rivers are roads which move, and which carry us whither we desire to go.
Blaise Pascal -
Plurality which is not reduced to unity is confusion; unity which does not depend on plurality is tyranny.
Blaise Pascal -
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.
Blaise Pascal
-
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.
Blaise Pascal -
FEU. Dieu d'Abraham, Dieu d'Isaac, Dieu de Jacob, non des philosophes et savants. Certitude. Certitude. Sentiment. Joie. Paix.
Blaise Pascal -
Things have different qualities, and the soul different inclinations; for nothing is simple which is presented to the soul, and the soul never presents itself simply to any object. Hence it comes that we weep and laugh at the same thing.
Blaise Pascal -
Fashion is a tyrant from which nothing frees us. We must suit ourselves to its fantastic tastes. But being compelled to live under its foolish laws, the wise man is never the first to follow, nor the last to keep it.
Blaise Pascal -
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!
Blaise Pascal -
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.
Blaise Pascal
-
We must make good people wish that the Christian faith were true, and then show that it is.
Blaise Pascal -
Curiosity is nothing more than vanity. More often than not we only seek knowledge to show it off.
Blaise Pascal -
All of our miseries prove our greatness. They are the miseries of a dethroned monarch.
Blaise Pascal -
It is not among extraordinary and fantastic things that excellence is to be found, of whatever kind it may be. We rise to attain it and become removed from it: it is oftenest necessary to stoop for it.
Blaise Pascal