Blaise Pascal Quotes
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If I had more time I would write a shorter letter.
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What matters it that man should have a little more knowledge of the universe? If he has it, he gets little higher. Is he not always infinitely removed from the end, and is not the duration of our life equally removed from eternity, even if it lasts ten years longer?
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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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Truly it is an evil to be full of faults; but it is a still greater evil to be full of them and to be unwilling to recognize them, since that is to add the further fault of a voluntary illusion.
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Either Christianity is true or it's false. If you bet that it's true, and you believe in God and submit to Him, then if it IS true, you've gained God, heaven, and everything else. If it's false, you've lost nothing, but you've had a good life marked by peace and the illusion that ultimately, everything makes sense. If you bet that Christianity is not true, and it's false, you've lost nothing. But if you bet that it's false, and it turns out to be true, you've lost everything and you get to spend eternity in hell.
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Making fun of philosophy is really philosophising.
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All our dignity lies in our thoughts.
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In each action we must look beyond the action at our past, present, and future state, and at others whom it affects, and see the relations of all those things. And then we shall be very cautious.
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By thought I embrace the universe.
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To make a man a saint, it must indeed be by grace; and whoever doubts this does not know what a saint is, or a man.
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Mutual cheating is the foundation of society.
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Let each of us examine his thoughts; he will find them wholly concerned with the past or the future. We almost never think of the present, and if we do think of it, it is only to see what light is throws on our plans for the future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means, the future alone our end. Thus we never actually live, but hope to live, and since we are always planning how to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so.
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Eloquence is a painting of the thoughts.
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The law required what it could not give. Grace gives that which it requires.
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The eternal Being is forever if he is at all.
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Words differently arranged have a different meaning, and meanings differently arranged have different effects.
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The knowledge of God is very far from the love of Him.
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Rivers are highways that move on and bear us whither we wish to go.
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The stream is always purer at its source. [Fr., Les choses valent toujours mieux dans leur source.]
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Nothing is thoroughly approved but mediocrity. The majority has established this, and it fixes its fangs on whatever gets beyond it either way.
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To speak freely of mathematics, I find it the highest exercise of the spirit; but at the same time I know that it is so useless that I make little distinction between a man who is only a mathematician and a common artisan. Also, I call it the most beautiful profession in the world; but it is only a profession.
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Who knows if this other half of life where we think we're awake is not another sleep a little different from the first.
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Men seek rest in a struggle against difficulties; and when they have conquered these, rest becomes insufferable.
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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.