Blaise Pascal Quotes
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To find recreation in amusement is not happiness.
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The art of revolutionizing and overturning states is to undermine established customs, by going back to their origin, in order to mark their want of justice.
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Nothing is so important to man as his own state; nothing is so formidable to him as eternity. And thus it is unnatural that thereshould be men indifferent to the loss of their existence and to the perils of everlasting suffering.
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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.
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The more I see of Mankind, the more I prefer my dog.
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Faith is different from proof; the latter is human, the former is a Gift from God.
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No animal admires another animal.
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When I have occasionally set myself to consider the different distractions of men, the pains and perils to which they expose themselves I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber.
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Parents fear the destruction of natural affection in their children. What is this natural principle so liable to decay? Habit is a second nature, which destroys the first. Why is not custom nature? I suspect that this nature itself is but a first custom, as custom is a second nature.
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It is not in Montaigne, but in myself, that I find all that I see in him.
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All the good maxims which are in the world fail when applied to one's self.
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Nothing gives rest but the sincere search for truth.
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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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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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Dull minds are never either intuitive or mathematical.
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To go beyond the bounds of moderation is to outrage humanity.
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Do you wish people to think well of you? Don't speak well of yourself.
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When everyone is moving towards depravity, no one seems to be moving, but if someone stops he shows up the others who are rushing on, by acting as a fixed point.
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We need not have the loftiest mind to understand that here is no lasting and real satisfaction, that our pleasures are only vanity, that our evils are infinite, and, lastly, that death, which threatens us every moment, must infallibly place us within a few years under the dreadful necessity of being forever either annihilated or unhappy.
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Those whom we call ancient were really new in all things, and properly constituted the infancy of mankind.
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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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It is the conduct of God, who disposes all things kindly, to put religion into the mind by reason, and into the heart by grace.
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We implore the mercy of God, not that He may leave us at peace in our vices, but that He may deliver us from them.
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Vanity is so anchored in the heart of man that a soldier, a soldier's servant, a cook, a porter brags and wishes to have his admirers. Even philosophers wish for them. Those who write against vanity want to have the glory of having written well; and those who read it desire the glory of having read it. I who write this have perhaps this desire, and perhaps those who will read it.