Blaise Pascal Quotes
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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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All I know is that I must soon die, but what I know least is this very death which I cannot escape.
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The law required what it could not give. Grace gives that which it requires.
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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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Eloquence is a painting of the thoughts.
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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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To deny, to believe, and to doubt well, are to a man what the race is to a horse.
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En un mot, l'homme conna|"t qu'il est mise rable: il est donc mise rable, puisqu'il l'est; mais il est bien grand, puisqu'il le conna|"t. In one word, man knows that he is miserable and therefore he is miserable because he knows it; but he is also worthy, because he knows his condition.
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Man finds nothing so intolerable as to be in a state of complete rest, without passions, without occupation, without diversion, without effort. Then he feels his nullity, loneliness, inadequacy, dependence, helplessness, emptiness.
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Mutual cheating is the foundation of society.
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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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Just as all things speak about God to those that know Him, and reveal Him to those that love Him, they also hide Him from all those that neither seek nor know Him.
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He who cannot believe is cursed, for he reveals by his unbelief that God has not chosen to give him grace.
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Lust is the source of all our actions, and humanity.
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No religion except ours has taught that man is born in sin; none of the philosophical sects has admitted it; none therefore has spoken the truth.
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Man is so made that if he is told often enough that he is a fool he believes it.
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There are two equally dangerous extremes-to shut reason out, and to let nothing else in.
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Habit is a second nature that destroys the first. But what is nature? Why is habit not natural? I am very much afraid that nature itself is only a first habit, just as habit is a second nature.
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Since [man] is infinitely removed from comprehending the extremes, the end of things and their beginning are hopelessly hidden from him in an impenetrable secret; he is equally incapable of seeing the nothing from which he was made, and the infinite in which he is swallowed up.
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Why God has instituted Prayer:— To communicate to his creatures the dignity of causation.
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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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Kind words produce their images on men's souls.
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All the excesses, all the violence, and all the vanity of great men, come from the fact that they know not what they are: it being difficult for those who regard themselves at heart as equal with all men... For this it is necessary for one to forget himself, and to believe that he has some real excellence above them, in which consists this illusion that I am endeavoring to discover to you.
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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.