Blaise Pascal Quotes
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However vast a man's spiritual resources, he is capable of but one great passion.
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The more intelligence one has, the more people one finds original. Commonplace people see no difference between men.
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That dog is mine said those poor children; that place in the sun is mine; such is the beginning and type of usurpation throughout the earth. [Fr., Ce chien est a moi, disaient ces pauvres enfants; c'est la ma place au soleil. Voila le commencement et l'image de l'usurpation de toute la terre.]
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Those honor nature well, who teach that she can speak on everything...
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The property of power is to protect.
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The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble.
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The Stoics say, "Retire within yourselves; it is there you will find your rest." And that is not true. Others say, "Go out of yourselves; seek happiness in amusement." And this is not true. Illness comes. Happiness is neither without us nor within us. It is in God, both without us and within us.
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Let us, then, take our compass; we are something, and we are not everything. The nature of our existence hides from us the knowledge of first beginnings which are born of the nothing; and the littleness of our being conceals from us the sight of the infinite. Our intellect holds the same position in the world of thought as our body occupies in the expanse of nature.
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E? loquence quipersuade par douceur, non par empire, en tyran, non en roi. Eloquence should persuade gently, not by force or like a tyrant or king.
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Thought makes the whole dignity of man; therefore endeavor to think well, that is the only morality.
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Quelque e tendue d'esprit que l'on ait, l'on n'est capable que d'une grande passion. However vast a man's spirit, he is only capable of one great passion.
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One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life and there is nothing better.
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Vanity is illustrated in the cause and effect of love, as in the case of Cleopatra.
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As we speak of poetical beauty, so ought we to speak of mathematical beauty and medical beauty. But we do not do so; and that reason is that we know well what is the object of mathematics, and that it consists in proofs, and what is the object of medicine, and that it consists in healing. But we do not know in what grace consists, which is the object of poetry.
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(Man,) the glory and the scandal of the universe.
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That a religion may be true, it must have knowledge of our nature.
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Undoubtedly equality of goods is just; but, being unable to cause might to obey justice, men has made it just to obey might. Unable to strengthen justice, they have justified might--so that the just and the strong should unite, and there should be peace, which is the sovereign good.
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Our soul is cast into a body, where it finds number, time, dimension. Thereupon it reasons, and calls this nature necessity, and can believe nothing else.
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It is dangerous to explain too clearly to man how like he is to the animals without pointing out his greatness. It is also dangerous to make too much of his greatness without his vileness. It is still more dangerous to leave him in ignorance of both, but it is most valuable to represent both to him. Man must not be allowed to believe that he is equal either to animals or to angels, nor to be unaware of either, but he must know both.
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Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.
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Law was once introduced without reason, and has become reasonable.
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All of our reasoning ends in surrender to feeling.
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Having been unable to strengthen justice, we have justified strength.
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The imagination disposes of everything. It creates beauty, justice, and happiness, which are the whole of the world.