Blaise Pascal Quotes
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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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Our nature lies in movement; complete calm is death.
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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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Le silence e ternel de ces espaces infinis m'effraie. The eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills me with dread.
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Continuous eloquence wearies.
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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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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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Reason is the slow and torturous method by which those who do not know the truth discover it.
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If you act externally with men in conformity with your rank, you should recognize, by a more secret but truer thought, that you have nothing naturally superior to them.
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What part of us feels pleasure? Is it our hand, our arm, our flesh, or our blood? It must obviously be something immaterial.
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The principles of pleasure are not firm and stable. They are different in all mankind, and variable in every particular with such a diversity that there is no man more different from another than from himself at different times.
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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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Man's sensitivity to the little things and insensitivity to the greatest are the signs of a strange disorder.
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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.
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All men are almost led to believe not of proof, but by attraction. This way is base, ignoble, and irrelevant; every one therefore disavows it. Each one professes to believe and even to love nothing but what he knows to be worthy of belief and love.
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People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come in to the mind of others.
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The weakness of human reason appears more evidently in those who know it not than in those who know it.
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There are plenty of maxims in the world; all that remains is to apply them.
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The struggle alone pleases us, not the victory.
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Nothing fortifies scepticism more than that there are some who are not sceptics; if all were so, they would be wrong.
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Fear not, provided you fear; but if you fear not, then fear.
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To be mistaken in believing that the Christian religion is true is no great loss to anyone; but how dreadful to be mistaken in believing it to be false!
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All men seek happiness. There are no exceptions.... This is the motive of every act of every man, including those who go and hang themselves.
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We have so exalted a notion of the human soul that we cannot bear to be despised, or even not to be esteemed by it. Man, in fact, places all his happiness in this esteem.