Blaise Pascal Quotes
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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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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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A doubtful balance is made between truth and pleasure, and... the knowledge of one and the feeling of the other stir up a combat the success of which is very uncertain, since, in order to judge of it, it would be necessary to know all that passes in the innermost spirit of the man, of which man himself is scarcely ever conscious.
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I bring you the gift of these four words: I believe in you.
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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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A few rules include all that is necessary for the perfection of the definitions, the axioms, and the demonstrations, and consequently of the entire method of the geometrical proofs of the art of persuading.
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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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Mankind suffers from two excesses: to exclude reason, and to live by nothing but reason.
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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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Man finds nothing so intolerable as to be in a state of complete rest, without passions, without occupation, without diversion, without effort. Then he feels his nullity, loneliness, inadequacy, dependence, helplessness, emptiness.
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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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Rivers are roads which move, and which carry us whither we desire to go.
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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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We must make good people wish that the Christian faith were true, and then show that it is.
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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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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.
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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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God is surrounded with people full of love who demand of him the benefits of love which are in his power: thus he is properly the king of love.
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To go beyond the bounds of moderation is to outrage humanity. The greatness of the human soul is shown by knowing how to keep within proper bounds. There are two equally dangerous extremes- to shut reason out, and not to let nothing in.
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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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At the centre of every human being is a God-shaped vacuum which can only be filled by Jesus Christ.
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This right which you have, is not founded any more than his upon any quality or any merit in yourself which renders you worthy of it. Your soul and your body are, of themselves, indifferent to the state of boatman or that of duke; and there is no natural bond that attaches them to one condition rather than to another.