Blaise Pascal Quotes
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The sweetness of glory is so great that, join it to what we will, even to death, we love it.
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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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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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I have spent much time in the study of the abstract sciences; but the paucity of persons with whom you can communicate on such subjects disgusted me with them. When I began to study man, I saw that these abstract sciences are not suited to him, and that in diving into them, I wandered farther from my real object than those who knew them not, and I forgave them for not having attended to these things. I expected then, however, that I should find some companions in the study of man, since it was so specifically a duty. I was in error. There are fewer students of man than of geometry.
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Vanity is illustrated in the cause and effect of love, as in the case of Cleopatra.
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Since we cannot know all that there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything.
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The God of Christians is a God of love and comfort, a God who fills the soul and heart of those whom he possesses, a God who makes them conscious of their inward wretchedness, and his infinite mercy; who unites himself to their inmost soul, who fills it with humility and joy, with confidence and love, who renders them incapable of any other end than himself.
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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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If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists.
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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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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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And is it not obvious that, just as it is a crime to disturb the peace when truth reigns, it is also a crime to remain at peace when the truth is being destroyed?
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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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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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Those honor nature well, who teach that she can speak on everything...
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The eternal Being is forever if he is at all.
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Small minds are concerned with the extraordinary, great minds with the ordinary.
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That a religion may be true, it must have knowledge of our nature.
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Since we cannot be universal and know all that is to be known of everything, we ought to know a little about everything. For it is far better to know something about everything than to know all about one thing. This universality is the best. If we can have both, still better; but if we must choose, we ought to choose the former.
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Silence. All human unhappiness comes from not knowing how to stay quietly in a room.
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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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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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Mutual cheating is the foundation of society.
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Love has reasons which reason cannot understand.