Blaise Pascal Quotes
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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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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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All the trouble in the world is due to the fact that man cannot sit still in a room.
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Why God has instituted Prayer:— To communicate to his creatures the dignity of causation.
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Mediocrity makes the most of its native possessions.
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Force rules the world-not opinion; but it is opinion that makes use of force.
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Ugly deeds are most estimable when hidden.
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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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Jesus Christ came to tell men that they have no enemies but themselves.
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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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I maintain that, if everyone knew what others said about him, there would not be four friends in the world.
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Silence. All human unhappiness comes from not knowing how to stay quietly in a room.
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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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The last proceeding of reason is to recognize that there is an infinity of things which are beyond it. There is nothing so conformable to reason as this disavowal of reason.
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Vanity is but the surface.
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Description of man: dependence, longing for independence, need.
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All men naturally hate one another. I hold it a fact, that if men knew exactly what one says of the other, there would not be four friends in the world.
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If god does not exist, one loses nothing by believing in him anyway, while if he does exist, one stands to lose everything by not believing.
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It is not good to be too free. It is not good to have all one wants.
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Curiosity is only vanity. We usually only want to know something so that we can talk about it.
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Quand on voit le style naturel, on est tout e tonne et ravi, car on s'attendait de voir un auteur, et on trouve un homme. When we see a natural style we are quite amazed and delighted, because we expected to see an author and find a man.
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The more intelligent a man is, the more originality he discovers in others.
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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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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.