Blaise Pascal Quotes
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Our nature lies in movement; complete calm is death.
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We should seek the truth without hesitation; and, if we refuse it, we show that we value the esteem of men more than the search for truth.
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The sensitivity of men to small matters, and their indifference to great ones, indicates a strange inversion.
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Seeing too much to deny and too little to be sure, I am in a state to be pitied.
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The heart has its reasons, which Reason does not know. We feel it in a thousand things. It is the heart which feels God, and not Reason. This, then, is perfect faith: God felt in the heart.
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Death is easier to bear without thinking of it, than the thought of death without peril.
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Rules for Definitions. I. Not to undertake to define any of the things so well known of themselves that the clearer terms cannot be had to explain them. II. Not to leave any terms that are at all obscure or ambiguous without definition. III. Not to employ in the definition of terms any words but such as are perfectly known or already explained.
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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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Christian piety annihilates the egoism of the heart; worldly politeness veils and represses it.
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A man does not show his greatness by being at one extremity, but rather by touching both at once.
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Which is the more believable of the two, Moses or China?
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Rules necessary for definitions. Not to leave any terms at all obscure or ambiguous without definition; Not to employ in definitions any but terms perfectly known or already explained.
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This is what I see, and what troubles me. I look on all sides, and everywhere I see nothing but obscurity. Nature offers me nothing that is not a matter of doubt and disquiet.
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Generally we are occupied either with the miseries which now we feel, or with those which threaten; and even when we see ourselves sufficiently secure from the approach of either, still fretfulness, though unwarranted by either present or expected affliction, fails not to spring up from the deep recesses of the heart, where its roots naturally grow, and to fill the soul with its poison.
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Orthodoxy on one side of the Pyrenees may be heresy on the other.
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We are fools to depend upon the society of our fellow-men. Wretched as we are, powerless as we are, they will not aid us; we shall die alone.
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God is, or He is not." But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager?
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These eight rules above contain all the precepts for solid and immutable proofs.
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Nothing is more common than good things: the point in question is only to discriminate them; and it is certain that they are all natural and within our reach and even known to all mankind.
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Reason is the slow and torturous method by which those who do not know the truth discover it.
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If we do not secure the foundation, we cannot secure the edifice.
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All mankind's troubles are caused by one single thing, which is their inability to sit quietly.
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The authority of reason is far more imperious than that of a master; for he who disobeys the one is unhappy, but he who disobeys the other is a fool.
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When we would show any one that he is mistaken, our best course is to observe on what side he considers the subject,--for his view of if is generally right on this side,--and admit to him that he is right so far. He will be satisfied with this acknowledgment, that he was not wrong in his judgment, but only inadvertent in not looking at the whole case.