Blaise Pascal Quotes
-
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.
-
Who can doubt that we exist only to love? Disguise it, in fact, as we will, we love without intermission... We live not a moment exempt from its influence.
-
Eloquence is a painting of thought; and thus those who, after having painted it, add something more, make a picture instead of a portrait.
-
There are some who speak well and write badly. For the place and the audience warm them, and draw from their minds more than they think of without that warmth.
-
Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness.
-
In proportion as our own mind is enlarged we discover a greater number of men of originality. Commonplace people see no difference between one man and another.
-
True eloquence makes light of eloquence. True morality makes light of morality.
-
Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him?
-
There are people who lie simply for the sake of lying.
-
Nothing is good but mediocrity. The majority has settled that, and finds fault with him who escapes it at whichever end... To leave the mean is to abandon humanity.
-
Justice is as much a matter of fashion as charm is.
-
Man is obviously made for thinking. Therein lies all his dignity and his merit; and his whole duty is to think as he ought.
-
Meanings receive their dignity from words instead of giving it to them.
-
If man should commence by studying himself, he would see how impossible it is to go further.
-
Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists.
-
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.
-
The great mass of people judge well of things, for they are in natural ignorance, which is man's true state.
-
Those whom we call ancient were really new in all things, and properly constituted the infancy of mankind.
-
To call a king "Prince" is pleasing, because it diminishes his rank.
-
We must keep our thought secret, and judge everything by it, while talking like the people.
-
Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true.
-
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.
-
Look for the truth, it wants to be found.
-
Faith is a sounder guide than reason. Reason can only go so far, but faith has no limits.