Blaise Pascal Quotes

Continuity in everything is unpleasant.

The knowledge of God without that of man's misery causes pride. The knowledge of man's misery without that of God causes despair. The knowledge of Jesus Christ is the middle course, because in Him we find both God and our misery.

I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it sho

Few friendships would survive if each one knew what his friend says of him behind his back

All our reasoning ends in surrender to feeling.

I made this [letter] very long, because I did not have the leisure to make it shorter.

If we examine our thoughts, we shall find them always occupied with the past and the future.

When I consider the small span of my life absorbed in the eternity of all time, or the small part of space which I can touch or see engulfed by the infinite immensity of spaces that I know not and that know me not, I am frightened and astonished to see myself here instead of there … now instead of then.

Lust and force are the source of all our actions lust causes voluntary actions force involuntary ones.

Finally, let them recognise that there are two kinds of people one can call reasonable; those who serve God with all their heart because they know Him, and those who seek Him with all their heart because they do not know Him.

The heart has its order, the mind has its own, which uses principles and demonstrations. The heart has a different one. We do not prove that we ought to be loved by setting out in order the causes of love; that would be absurd.

Eloquence.— We need both what is pleasing and what is real, but that which pleases must itself be drawn from the true.

I lay it down as a fact that if all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends in the world.

Faith declares what the senses do not see but not the contrary of what they see.

What a Chimera is man! What a novelty, a monster, a chaos, a contradiction, a prodigy! Judge of all things, an imbecile worm; depository of truth, and sewer of error and doubt; the glory and refuse of the universe.

Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.

Knowing God without knowing our wretchedness leads to pride. Knowing our wretchedness without knowing God leads to despair. Knowing Jesus Christ is the middle course, because in him we find both God and our wretchedness.

The heart has reasons which reason cannot understand.

The heart has its reasons which reason knows not.

Contradiction is not a sign of falsity nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.

The last advance of reason is to recognize that it is surpassed by innumerable things it is feeble if it cannot realize that.

The charm of fame is so great, that we like every object to which it is attached, even death.

All mankind's unhappiness derives from one thing: his inability to know how to remain in repose in one room.

Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much

Let it not be said that I have said nothing new. The arrangement of the material is new.

Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. Love still stands when all else has fallen.

The infinite distance between the mind & the body is a symbol of the distance that is infinitely more, between the intellect & love, for love is divine.

Dull minds are never either intuitive or mathematical.

The last thing we discover in composing a work is what to put down first.

Those honor nature well, who teach that she can speak on everything.

It is the heart which experiences God not the reason.

We sail within a vast sphere ever drifting in uncertainty driven from end to end.

It is the heart which experiences God and not the reason.

Few men speak humbly of humility, chastely of chastity, skeptically of skepticism.

As we are always preparing to be happy it is inevitable that we should never be so.

The art of opposition and of revolution is to unsettle established customs, sounding them even to their source, to point out their want of authority and justice.

Curiosity is only vanity. We usually only want to know something so that we can talk about it.

In every action we must look beyond the action at our past, present and future state, and at others whom it affects, and see the relations of all these things.

Eloquence is painted thought, and thus those who, after having painted it, add somewhat more, make a picture, not a portrait.

I would prefer an intelligent hell to a stupid paradise.

The power of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special efforts but by his ordinary doing.

We do not content ourselves with the life we have in ourselves and in our own being; we desire to live an imaginary life in the mind of others, and for this purpose we endeavour to shine. We labour unceasingly to adorn and preserve this imaginary existence, and neglect the real. And if we possess calmness, or generosity, or truthfulness, we are eager to make it known, so as to attach these virtues to that imaginary existence. We would rather separate them from ourselves to join them to it; and we would willingly be cowards in order to acquire the reputation of being brave. A great proof of the nothingness of our being, not to be satisfied with the one without the other, and to renounce the one for the other! For he would be infamous who would not die to preserve his honour.

We must keep our thought secret, and judge everything by it, while talking like the people.

People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others.

Instinct teaches us to look for happiness outside ourselves.

If you want people to think well of you do not speak well of yourself.

To make a man a saint, it must indeed be by grace; and whoever doubts this does not know what a saint is, or a man.

The majority is the best way because it is visible and has strength to make itself obeyed. Yet it is the opinion of the least able.

No religion except ours has taught that man is born in sin none of the philosophical sects has admitted it none therefore has spoken the truth

He no longer loves the person whom he loved ten years ago. I quite believe it. She is no longer the same, nor is he. He was young, and she also; she is quite different. He would perhaps love her yet, if she were what she was then.

I have only made this letter rather long because I have not had time to make it shorter.

It is impossible on reasonable grounds to disbelieve miracles.

Faith is a gift of God.

Our intellect holds the same position in the world of thought as our body occupies in the expanse of nature.

I do not admire the excess of a virtue like courage unless I see at the same time an excess of the opposite virtue, as in Epaminondas, who possessed extreme courage and extreme kindness. We show greatness not by being at one extreme, but by touching both at once and occupying all the space in between.

Kind words produce their images on men's souls.

Even those who write against fame wish for the fame of having written well, and those who read their works desire the fame of having read them.

Jesus Christ is a God whom we approach without pride and before whom we humble ourselves without despair.

The past and present are only our means the future is always our end. Thus we never really live but only hope to live.

If man studied himself, he would see how incapable he is of going further.