Blaise Pascal Quotes
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It is impossible on reasonable grounds to disbelieve miracles.
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Faith is a sounder guide than reason. Reason can only go so far, but faith has no limits.
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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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Happiness is neither within us, nor without us. It is in the union of ourselves with God.
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Being unable to cure death, wretchedness, and ignorance, men have decided, in order to be happy, not to think about such things.
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The imagination disposes of everything. It creates beauty, justice, and happiness, which are the whole of the world.
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If man should commence by studying himself, he would see how impossible it is to go further.
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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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There are only three types of people; those who have found God and serve him; those who have not found God and seek him, and those who live not seeking, or finding him. The first are rational and happy; the second unhappy and rational, and the third foolish and unhappy.
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There is no arena in which vanity displays itself under such a variety of forms as in conversation.
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Imagination magnifies small objects with fantastic exaggeration until they fill our soul, and with bold insolence cuts down great things to its own size, as when speaking of God.
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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 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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Dull minds are never either intuitive or mathematical.
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We conceal it from ourselves in vain - we must always love something. In those matters seemingly removed from love, the feeling is secretly to be found, and man cannot possibly live for a moment without it.
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The philosophers talk to you about the dignity of man, and they tempt you to pride, or they talk to you about the misery of man, and they tempt you to despair.
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If we examine our thoughts, we shall find them always occupied with the past or the future.
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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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The arithmetical machine produces effects that approach nearer to thought than all the actions of animals. But it does nothing that would enable us to attribute will to it, as to the animals.
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If a soldier or labourer complain of the hardship of his lot, set him to do nothing.
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Faith indeed tells what the senses do not tell, but not the contrary of what they see. It is above them and not contrary to them.
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Extremes are for us as if they were not, and as if we were not in regard to them; they escape from us, or we from them.
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Let it not be imagined that the life of a good Christian must be a life of melancholy and gloominess; for he only resigns some pleasures to enjoy others infinitely better.
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If we dreamed the same thing every night, it would affect us much as the objects we see every day. And if a common workman were sure to dream every night for twelve hours that he was a king, I believe he would be almost as happy as a king who should dream every night for twelve hours on end that he was a common workman.