Blaise Pascal Quotes
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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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Thought makes the whole dignity of man; therefore endeavor to think well, that is the only morality.
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Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
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The eternal Being is forever if he is at all.
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Few friendships would survive if each one knew what his friend says of him behind his back.
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What can be seen on earth points to neither the total absence nor the obvious presence of divinity, but to the presence of a hidden God. Everything bears this mark.
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That a religion may be true, it must have knowledge of our nature.
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You always admire what you really don't understand.
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Let man reawake and consider what he is compared with the reality of things; regard himself lost in this remote corner of Nature; and from the tiny cell where he lodges, to wit the Universe, weigh at their true worth earth, kingdoms, towns, himself. What is a man face to face with infinity?
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Mutual cheating is the foundation of society.
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The imagination disposes of everything. It creates beauty, justice, and happiness, which are the whole of the world.
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Eloquence is a way of saying things in such a way, first, that those to whom we speak may listen to them without pain and with pleasure, and second, that they feel themselves interested, so that self-love leads them more willingly to reflection upon it.
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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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Jesus is the God whom we can approach without pride and before whom we can humble ourselves without despair.
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All man's troubles come from not knowing how to sit still in one room.
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The strength of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts.
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The knowledge of God is very far from the love of Him.
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Without Jesus Christ man must be in vice and misery with Jesus Christ man is free from vice and misery in Him is all our virtue and all our happiness. Apart from Him there is but vice, misery, darkness, death, despair.
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Jesus Christ came to tell men that they have no enemies but themselves.
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Vanity is so anchored in the heart of man that a soldier, a soldier's servant, a cook, a porter brags and wishes to have his admirers. Even philosophers wish for them. Those who write against vanity want to have the glory of having written well; and those who read it desire the glory of having read it. I who write this have perhaps this desire, and perhaps those who will read it.
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How hollow is the heart of man, and how full of excrement!
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Kind words produce their images on men's souls.
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Human beings must be known to be loved; but Divine beings must be loved to be known.
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Those who write against vanity want the glory of having written well, and their readers the glory of reading well, and I who write this have the same desire, as perhaps those who read this have also.