Blaise Pascal Quotes
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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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Things are always at their best in their beginning.
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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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All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves.
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The supreme function of reason is to show man that some things are beyond reason.
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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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What a vast difference there is between knowing God and loving Him.
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I maintain that, if everyone knew what others said about him, there would not be four friends in the world.
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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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The parts of the universe ... all are connected with each other in such a way that I think it to be impossible to understand any one without the whole.
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If there were only one religion, God would indeed be manifest.
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We do not rest satisfied with the present.... So imprudent we are that we wander in the times which are not ours and do not thinkof the only one which belongs to us; and so idle are we that we dream of those times which are no more and thoughtlessly overlook that which alone exists. For the present is generally painful to us.
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The heart has its order, the mind has its own, which uses principles and demonstrations. The heart has a different one. We do not prove that we ought to be loved by setting out in order the causes of love; that would be absurd.
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It is of dangerous consequence to represent to man how near he is to the level of beasts, without showing him at the same time his greatness. It is likewise dangerous to let him see his greatness without his meanness. It is more dangerous yet to leave him ignorant of either; but very beneficial that he should be made sensible of both.
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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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The knowledge of God is very far from the love of Him.
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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.
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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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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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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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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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Two things control men's nature, instinct and experience.
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Man is nothing but insincerity, falsehood, and hypocrisy, both in regard to himself and in regard to others. He does not wish that he should be told the truth, he shuns saying it to others; and all these moods, so inconsistent with justice and reason, have their roots in his heart.
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(Man,) the glory and the scandal of the universe.