Blaise Pascal Quotes
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Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for our miseries. Yet it is itself the greatest of our miseries.
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I can approve of those only who seek in tears for happiness.
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We never love a person, but only qualities.
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To ridicule philosophy is truly philosophical. [Fr., Se moquer de la philosophie c'est vraiment philosophe.]
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What a difficult thing it is to ask someone's advice on a matter without coloring his judgment by the way in which we present our problem.
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If we regulate our conduct according to our own convictions, we may safely disregard the praise or censure of others.
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Our notion of symmetry is derived form the human face. Hence, we demand symmetry horizontally and in breadth only, not vertically nor in depth.
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There is a virtuous fear, which is the effect of faith; and there is a vicious fear, which is the product of doubt. The former leads to hope, as relying on God, in whom we believe; the latter inclines to despair, as not relying on God, in whom we do not believe. Persons of the one character fear to lose God; persons of the other character fear to find Him.
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Logic has borrowed, perhaps, the rules of geometry, without comprehending their force... it does not thence follow that they have entered into the spirit of geometry, and I should be greatly averse... to placing them on a level with that science that teaches the true method of directing reason.
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All is one, all is different. How many natures exist in man? How many vocations? And by what chance does each man ordinarily choose what he has heard praised?
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No one is ignorant that there are two avenues by which opinions are received into the soul, which are its two principal powers: the understanding and the will.
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I bring you the gift of these four words: I believe in you.
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We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end. When we think to attach ourselves to any pointand to fasten to it, it wavers and leaves us; and if we follow it, it eludes our grasp, slips past us, and vanishes for ever. Nothing stays for us.
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Rules necessary for axioms. Not to demand in axioms any but things perfectly evident.
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Civil wars are the greatest of evils. They are inevitable, if we wish to reward merit, for all will say that they are meritorious.
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Let man then contemplate nature in full and lofty majesty, and turn his eyes away from the mean objects which surround him. Let him look at the dazzling light hung aloft as an eternal lamp to lighten the universe; let him behold the earth, a mere dot compared with the vast circuit which that orb describes, and stand amazed to find that the vast circuit itself is but a very fine point compared with the orbit traced by the starts as they roll their course on high.
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Anyone who does not see the vanity of the world is very vain himself. So who does not see it, apart from young people whose lives are all noise, diversions, and thoughts for the future? But take away their diversion and you will see them bored to extinction. Then they feel their nullity without recognizing it, for nothing could be more wretched than to be intolerably depressed as soon as one is reduced to introspection with no means of diversion.
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Nature has some perfections to show that she is the image of God, and some defects to show that she is only His image.
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Mankind suffers from two excesses: to exclude reason, and to live by nothing but reason.
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Justice is what is established; and thus all our established laws will necessarily be regarded as just without examination, since they are established.
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It is necessary to have regard to the person whom we wish to persuade, of whom we must know the mind and the heart, what principles he acknowledges, what things he loves; and then observe in the thing in question what affinity it has with the acknowledged principles, or with the objects so delightful by the pleasure which they give him.
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Brave deeds are wasted when hidden.
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C'est une maladie naturelle à l'homme de croire qu'il possède la vérité directement…
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Rivers are roads which move, and which carry us whither we desire to go.