Blaise Pascal Quotes - Page 2

No animal admires another animal.

Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.

People often mistake their imagination for their heart, & so often are convinced they are converted as soon as they start thinking of becoming converted.

Nothing is so intolerable to man as being fully at rest without passion without business without entertainment without care. It is then that he recognizes that he is empty insufficient dependent ineffectual. From the depths of his soul now comes at once boredom gloom sorrow chagrin resentment and despair.

If a soldier or labourer complains of the hardship of his lot set him to do nothing.

Everyone without exception is searching for happiness.

Men spend their time in following a ball or a hare it is the pleasure even of kings.

God instituted prayer to communicate to creatures the dignity of causality.

Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and the scholars. I will not forget thy word. Amen.

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...?

All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit quiet in a room alone.

The struggle alone pleases us not the victory.

People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive.

Man is but a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed.

Since we cannot know all there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything.

We do not content ourselves with the life we have in ourselves we desire to live an imaginary life in the minds of others and for this purpose we endeavor to shine.

Two things control man's nature: instinct and experience.

Our nature consists in motion complete rest is death.

Losses are comparative imagination only makes them of any moment.

If we submit everything to reason our religion will be left with nothing mysterious or supernatural. If we offend the principles of reason our religion will be absurd and ridiculous . . . There are two equally dangerous extremes: to exclude reason, to admit nothing but reason.

In each action we must look beyond the action at our past present and future state and at others whom it affects and see the relation of all those things. And then we shall be very cautious.

There are three sources of belief: reason, custom, inspiration.

There is nothing we can now call our own, for what we call so is the effect of art; crimes are made by decrees of the senate, or by the votes of the people; and as here-to-fore we are burdened by vices, so now we are oppressed by laws.

I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter.", 1657)

There is a certain standard of grace and beauty which consists in a certain relation between our nature... and the thing which pleases us.

Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed.

He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God's providence to lead him aright

Δύο υπερβολές : ν' αποκλείουμε το Λόγο, και να μη δεχόμαστε παρά μόνο το Λόγο.

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.

Il n'est pas certain que tout soit incertain.(Translation: It is not certain that everything is uncertain.)

Man is only a reed the weakest thing in nature but he is a thinking reed.

It is man's natural sickness to believe that he possesses the truth.

Losses are comparative only imagination makes them of any moment.

When we read too fast or too slowly, we understand nothing.

Lust is the source of all our actions, and humanity.

The world is a good judge of things, for it is in natural ignorance, which is man's true state. The sciences have two extremes which meet. The first is the pure natural ignorance in which all men find themselves at birth. The other extreme is that reached by great intellects, who, having run through all that men can know, find they know nothing, and come back again to that same ignorance from which they set out; but this is a learned ignorance which is conscious of itself. Those between the two, who have departed from natural ignorance and not been able to reach the other, have some smattering of this vain knowledge and pretend to be wise. These trouble the world and are bad judges of everything. The people and the wise constitute the world; these despise it, and are despised. They judge badly of everything, and the world judges rightly of them.

This dog is mine," said those poor children; "that is my place in the sun." Here is the beginning and the image of the usurpation of all the earth.

Just as all things speak about God to those that know Him, and reveal Him to those that love Him, they also hide Him from all those that neither seek nor know Him.

Great and small suffer the same mishaps.

Men are so inevitably mad that not to be mad would be to give a mad twist to madness.

All things can be deadly to us, even the things made to serve us; as in nature walls can kill us, and stairs can kill us, if we do not walk circumspectly.

The last thing one knows when writing a book is what to put first.

Our own interests are still an exquisite means for dazzling our eyes agreeably.

All men have happiness as their object: there are no exceptions. However different the means they employ they aim at the same end.

Knowlege of God without knowledge of man's wretchedness leads to pride. Knowledge of man's wretchedness without knowledge of God leads to despair. Knowledge of Jesus Christ is the middle course, because by it we discover both God and our wretched state.

Do you wish people to think well of you? Don't speak well of yourself.

Nature has made all her truths independent of one another. Our art makes one dependent on the other.

All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.

Men seek rest in a struggle against difficulties; and when they have conquered these, rest becomes insufferable.

All men have happiness as their object: there is no exception. However different the means they employ they aim at the same end.

When I see the blind and wretched state of men, when I survey the whole universe in its deadness, and man left to himself with no light, as though lost in this corner of the universe without knowing who put him there, what he has to do, or what will become of him when he dies, incapable of knowing anything, I am moved to terror, like a man transported in his sleep to some terrifying desert island, who wakes up quite lost, with no means of escape. Then I marvel that so wretched a state does not drive people to despair.

The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what to put first.

If we all told what we know of one another there would not be four friends in the world

To ridicule philosophy is really to philosophize.

The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of.

Faith is a sounder guide than reason. Reason can go only so far but faith has no limits.

The virtue of a man ought to be measured not by his extraordinary exertions, but by his every-day conduct.

To make light of philosophy is to be a true philosopher.