Blaise Pascal Quotes
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Once your soul has been enlarged by a truth, it can never return to its original size.
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It is not our task to secure the triumph of truth, but merely to fight on its behalf.
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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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True eloquence makes light of eloquence, true morality makes light of morality; that is to say, the morality of the judgment, which has no rules, makes light of the morality of the intellect.... To make light of philosophy is to be a true philosopher.
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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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What a vast difference there is between knowing God and loving Him.
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The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men.
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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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A town, a landscape are when seen from afar a town and a landscape; but as one gets nearer, there are houses, trees, tiles leaves, grasses, ants, legs of ants and so on to infinity. All this is subsumed under the name of landscape.
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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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Knowing God without knowing our own wretchedness makes for pride. Knowing our own wretchedness without knowing God makes for despair. Knowing Jesus Christ strikes the balance because he shows us both God and our own wretchedness.
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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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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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I condemn equally those who choose to praise man, those who choose to condemn him and those who choose to divert themselves, and I can only approve of those who seek with groans.
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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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The last thing that we find in making a book is to know what we must put first.
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The property of power is to protect.
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It is a dangerous experiment to call in gratitude as an ally to love. Love is a debt which inclination always pays, obligation never.
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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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Love has reasons which reason cannot understand.
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Chance gives rise to thoughts, and chance removes them; no art can keep or acquire them.
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Curiosity is only vanity. Most frequently we wish not to know, but to talk. We would not take a sea voyage for the sole pleasure of seeing without hope of ever telling.
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Words differently arranged have a different meaning, and meanings differently arranged have different effects.
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Human beings must be known to be loved; but Divine beings must be loved to be known.