Blaise Pascal Quotes
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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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I do not admire a virtue like valour when it is pushed to excess, if I do not see at the same time the excess of the opposite virtue, as one does in Epaminondas, who displayed extreme valour and extreme benevolence. For otherwise it is not an ascent, but a fall. We do not display our greatness by placing ourselves at one extremity, but rather by being at both at the same time, and filling up the whole of the space between them.
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If we do not know ourselves to be full of pride, ambition, lust, weakness, misery, and injustice, we are indeed blind. And if, knowing this, we do not desire deliverance, what can we say of a man...?
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These five rules above form all that is necessary to render proofs convincing, immutable, and to say all, geometrical; and the eight rules together render them even more perfect.
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The consciousness of the falsity of present pleasures, and the ignorance of the vanity of absent pleasures, cause inconstancy.
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The last function of reason is to recognize that there are an infinity of things which surpass it.
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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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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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It is necessary to show that there is nothing so little known as the above rules, nothing more difficult to practice, or nothing more useful and universal.
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If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible, since, having, neither parts nor limits, He has no affinity to us. We are then incapable of knowing either what He is or if He is. [So] you must wager. Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager then without hesitation that he is.
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If ignorance were bliss, he'd be a blister.
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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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The Church limits her sacramental services to the faithful. Christ gave Himself upon the cross a ransom for all.
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We must learn our limits. We are all something, but none of us are everything.
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Either God exists or He doesn't. Either I believe in God or I don't. Of the four possibilities, only one is to my disadvantage. To avoid that possibility, I believe in God.
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We must kill them in war, just because they live beyond the river. If they lived on this side, we would be called murderers.
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The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.
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The pagans do not know God, and love only the earth. The Jews know the true God, and love only the earth. The Christians know the true God, and do not love the earth.
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All men have happiness as their object: there is no exception. However different the means they employ, they all aim at the same end.
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I feel engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces whereof I know nothing, and which know nothing of me, I am terrified The eternal silence of these infinite spaces alarms me.
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[On vanity:] The nose of Cleopatra: if it had been shorter, the face of the earth would have changed.
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From whence comes it that a cripple in body does not irritate us, and that a crippled mind enrages us? It is because a cripple sees that we go right, and a distorted mind says that it is we who go astray. But for that we should have more pity and less rage.
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All the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber.
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The captain of a ship is not chosen from those of the passengers who comes from the best family.