Blaise Pascal Quotes
-
All of our miseries prove our greatness. They are the miseries of a dethroned monarch.
-
They men have corrupted this God's supernatural order by making profane things what they should make of holy things, because in fact, we believe scarcely any thing except which pleases us.
-
Plurality which is not reduced to unity is confusion; unity which does not depend on plurality is tyranny.
-
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.
-
Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for our miseries. Yet it is itself the greatest of our miseries.
-
Some vices only lay hold of us by means of others, and these, like branches, fall on removal of the trunk.
-
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.
-
It is not your strength and your natural power that subjects all these people to you. Do not pretend then to rule them by force or to treat them with harshness. Satisfy their reasonable desires; alleviate their necessities; let your pleasure consist in being beneficent; advance them as much as you can, and you will act like the true king of desire.
-
I can approve of those only who seek in tears for happiness.
-
We must make good people wish that the Christian faith were true, and then show that it is.
-
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.
-
Caesar was too old, it seems to me, to go off and amuse himself conquering the world. Such a pastime was all right for Augustus and Alexander; they were young men, not easily held in check, but Caesar ought to have been more mature.
-
Several particular maxims... are as powerful, although false, in carrying away belief, as those the most true.
-
All our reasoning boils down to yielding to sentiment.
-
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.
-
FEU. Dieu d'Abraham, Dieu d'Isaac, Dieu de Jacob, non des philosophes et savants. Certitude. Certitude. Sentiment. Joie. Paix.
-
By space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an atom; by thought I comprehend the world.
-
What a difficult thing it is to ask someone's advice on a matter without coloring his judgment by the way in which we present our problem.
-
Custom determines what is agreeable.
-
Seeing too much to deny and too little to be sure, I am in a state to be pitied.
-
A doubtful balance is made between truth and pleasure, and... the knowledge of one and the feeling of the other stir up a combat the success of which is very uncertain, since, in order to judge of it, it would be necessary to know all that passes in the innermost spirit of the man, of which man himself is scarcely ever conscious.
-
Mankind suffers from two excesses: to exclude reason, and to live by nothing but reason.
-
What is it, in your opinion, to be a great nobleman? It is to be master of several objects that men covet, and thus to be able to satisfy the wants and the desires of many. It is these wants and these desires that attract them towards you, and that make them submit to you: were it not for these, they would not even look at you; but they hope, by these services... to obtain from you some part of the good which they desire, and of which they see that you have the disposal.
-
Anyone who does not see the vanity of the world is very vain himself. So who does not see it, apart from young people whose lives are all noise, diversions, and thoughts for the future? But take away their diversion and you will see them bored to extinction. Then they feel their nullity without recognizing it, for nothing could be more wretched than to be intolerably depressed as soon as one is reduced to introspection with no means of diversion.