Blaise Pascal Quotes
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I cannot judge my work while I am doing it. I have to do as painters do, stand back and view it from a distance, but not too great a distance. How great? Guess.
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Plurality which is not reduced to unity is confusion; unity which does not depend on plurality is tyranny.
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The exterior must be joined to the interior to obtain anything from God, that is to say, we must kneel, pray with the lips, and soon, in order that proud man, who would not submit himself to God, may be now subject to the creature.
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The method of not erring is sought by all the world. The logicians profess to guide it, the geometricians alone attain it, and apart from science, and the imitations of it, there are no true demonstrations.
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If it had pleased them the legislators to order that this wealth, after having been possessed by fathers during their life, should return to the republic after their death, you would have no reason to complain of it.
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It is certain that those who have the living faith in their hearts see at once that all existence is none other than the work of the God whom they adore. But for those in whom this light is extinguished, [if we were to show them our proofs of the existence of God] nothing is more calculated to arouse their contempt. . . .
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As soon as the soul has been made to perceive that a thing can conduct it to that which it loves supremely, it must inevitably embrace it with joy.
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To ridicule philosophy is truly philosophical. [Fr., Se moquer de la philosophie c'est vraiment philosophe.]
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It is not your strength and your natural power that subjects all these people to you. Do not pretend then to rule them by force or to treat them with harshness. Satisfy their reasonable desires; alleviate their necessities; let your pleasure consist in being beneficent; advance them as much as you can, and you will act like the true king of desire.
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It is the contest that delights us, and not the victory.
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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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Of the truths within our reach... the mind and the heart are as doors by which they are received into the soul, but... few enter by the mind, whilst they are brought in crowds by the rash caprices of the will, without the council of reason.
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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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We see neither justice nor injustice which does not change its nature with change in climate. Three degrees of latitude reverse all jurisprudence; a meridian decides the truth.
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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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For as old age is that period of life most remote from infancy, who does not see that old age in this universal man ought not to be sought in the times nearest his birth, but in those most remote from it?
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Rules necessary for axioms. Not to demand in axioms any but things perfectly evident.
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Brave deeds are wasted when hidden.
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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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We never love a person, but only qualities.
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Mankind suffers from two excesses: to exclude reason, and to live by nothing but reason.
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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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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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If we regulate our conduct according to our own convictions, we may safely disregard the praise or censure of others.