Blaise Pascal Quotes
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Chess is the gymnasium of the mind.
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The serene, silent beauty of a holy life is the most powerful influence in the world, next to the night of God.
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Put the world's greatest philosopher on a plank that is wider than need be; if there is a precipe below, although his reason may convince him that he is safe, his imagination will prevail.
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Not the zeal alone of those who seek Him proves God, but the blindness of those who seek Him not.
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We never do evil so effectually as when we are led to do it by a false principle of conscience.
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May God never abandon me.
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...for the truth is always older than all the opinions men have held regarding it; and one should be ignoring the nature of truth if we imagined that the truth began at the time it came to be known.
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In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't.
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The past and present are only our means; the future is always our end. Thus we never really live, but only hope to live.
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Whilst in speaking of human things, we say that it is necessary to know them before we love can them. The saints on the contrary say in speaking of divine things that it is necessary to love them in order to know them, and that we only enter truth through charity.
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The mind of the greatest man on earth is not so independent of circumstances as not to feel inconvenienced by the merest buzzing noise about him; it does not need the report of a cannon to disturb his thoughts. The creaking of a vane or a pully is quite enough. Do not wonder that he reasons ill just now; a fly is buzzing by his ear; it is quite enough to unfit him for giving good counsel.
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We are not satisfied with real life; we want to live some imaginary life in the eyes of other people and to seem different from what we actually are.
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Religion is so great a thing that it is right that those who will not take the trouble to seek it if it be obscure, should be deprived of it.
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If men knew themselves, God would heal and pardon them.
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Happiness is neither within us, nor without us. It is in the union of ourselves with God.
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One must have deeper motives and judge everything accordingly, but go on talking like an ordinary person.
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How vain painting is-we admire the realistic depiction of objects which in their original state we don't admire at all.
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The statements of atheists ought to be perfectly clear of doubt. Now it is not perfectly clear that the soul is material.
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Instead of complaining that God had hidden himself, you will give Him thanks for having revealed so much of Himself.
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We know then the existence and nature of the finite, because we also are finite and have extension. We know the existence of the infinite and are ignorant of its nature, because it has extension like us, but not limits like us. But we know neither the existence nor the nature of God, because he has neither extension nor limits.
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We have an idea of truth, invincible to all scepticism.
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We are so presumptuous that we wish to be known to all the world, even to those who come after us; and we are so vain that the esteem of five or six persons immediately around us is enough to amuse and satisfy us.
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Do you wish people to speak well of you? Then do not speak at all yourself.
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Clarity of mind means clarity of passion, too; this is why a great and clear mind loves ardently and sees distinctly what it loves.