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Pascal "language" (After the French mathematician {Blaise Pascal} (1623-1662)) A programming language designed by {Niklaus Wirth} around 1970. Pascal was designed for simplicity and for teaching programming, in reaction to the complexity of {ALGOL 68}. It emphasises {structured programming} constructs, data structures and {strong typing}. Innovations included {enumeration types}, {subranges}, sets, {variant records}, and the {case statement}. Pascal has been extremely influential in programming language design and has a great number of variants and descendants. ANSI/IEEE770X3.97-1993 is very similar to {ISO Pascal} but does not include {conformant arrays}. ISO 7185-1983(E). Level 0 and Level 1. Changes from Jensen & Wirth's Pascal include name equivalence; names must be bound before they are used; loop index must be local to the procedure; formal procedure parameters must include their arguments; {conformant array schemas}. An ALGOL-descended language designed by Niklaus Wirth on the CDC 6600 around 1967--68 as an instructional tool for elementary programming. This language, designed primarily to keep students from shooting themselves in the foot and thus extremely restrictive from a general-purpose-programming point of view, was later promoted as a general-purpose tool and, in fact, became the ancestor of a large family of languages including Modula-2 and {Ada} (see also {bondage-and-discipline language}). The hackish point of view on Pascal was probably best summed up by a devastating (and, in its deadpan way, screamingly funny) 1981 paper by Brian Kernighan (of {K&R} fame) entitled "Why Pascal is Not My Favourite Programming Language", which was turned down by the technical journals but circulated widely via photocopies. It was eventually published in "Comparing and Assessing Programming Languages", edited by Alan Feuer and Narain Gehani (Prentice-Hall, 1984). Part of his discussion is worth repeating here, because its criticisms are still apposite to Pascal itself after ten years of improvement and could also stand as an indictment of many other bondage-and-discipline languages. At the end of a summary of the case against Pascal, Kernighan wrote: 9. There is no escape This last point is perhaps the most important. The language is inadequate but circumscribed, because there is no way to escape its limitations. There are no casts to disable the type-checking when necessary. There is no way to replace the defective run-time environment with a sensible one, unless one controls the compiler that defines the "standard procedures". The language is closed. People who use Pascal for serious programming fall into a fatal trap. Because the language is impotent, it must be extended. But each group extends Pascal in its own direction, to make it look like whatever language they really want. Extensions for {separate compilation}, Fortran-like COMMON, string data types, internal static variables, initialisation, {octal} numbers, bit operators, etc., all add to the utility of the language for one group but destroy its portability to others. I feel that it is a mistake to use Pascal for anything much beyond its original target. In its pure form, Pascal is a toy language, suitable for teaching but not for real programming. Pascal has since been almost entirely displaced (by {C}) from the niches it had acquired in serious applications and systems programming, but retains some popularity as a hobbyist language in the {MS-DOS} and {Macintosh} worlds. See also {Kamin's interpreters}, {p2c}. ["The Programming Language Pascal", N. Wirth, Acta Informatica 1:35-63, 1971]. ["PASCAL User Manual and Report", K. Jensen & N. Wirth, Springer 1975] made significant revisions to the language. [BS 6192, "Specification for Computer Programming Language Pascal", {British Standards Institute} 1982]. [{Jargon File}] (1996-06-12)

Pascal ::: (language) (After the French mathematician Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)) A programming language designed by Niklaus Wirth around 1970. Pascal was designed records, and the case statement. Pascal has been extremely influential in programming language design and has a great number of variants and descendants.ANSI/IEEE770X3.97-1993 is very similar to ISO Pascal but does not include conformant arrays.ISO 7185-1983(E). Level 0 and Level 1. Changes from Jensen & Wirth's Pascal include name equivalence; names must be bound before they are used; loop index must be local to the procedure; formal procedure parameters must include their arguments; conformant array schemas.An ALGOL-descended language designed by Niklaus Wirth on the CDC 6600 around 1967--68 as an instructional tool for elementary programming. This language, bondage-and-discipline languages. At the end of a summary of the case against Pascal, Kernighan wrote:9. There is no escapeThis last point is perhaps the most important. The language is inadequate but circumscribed, because there is no way to escape its limitations. There are no the defective run-time environment with a sensible one, unless one controls the compiler that defines the standard procedures. The language is closed.People who use Pascal for serious programming fall into a fatal trap. Because the language is impotent, it must be extended. But each group extends Pascal in all add to the utility of the language for one group but destroy its portability to others.I feel that it is a mistake to use Pascal for anything much beyond its original target. In its pure form, Pascal is a toy language, suitable for teaching but not for real programming.Pascal has since been almost entirely displaced (by C) from the niches it had acquired in serious applications and systems programming, but retains some popularity as a hobbyist language in the MS-DOS and Macintosh worlds.See also Kamin's interpreters, p2c.[The Programming Language Pascal, N. Wirth, Acta Informatica 1:35-63, 1971].[PASCAL User Manual and Report, K. Jensen & N. Wirth, Springer 1975] made significant revisions to the language.[BS 6192, Specification for Computer Programming Language Pascal, British Standards Institute 1982].[Jargon File] (1996-06-12)

pressure: The measure of force exerted over a standardised area. Often denoted with the Greek letter p (rho). The S.I. unit of pressure is the Pascal (class="d-title" named after Blaise Pascal), being the equivalent of one Newton with a square metre.

KEYS (10k)

   21 Blaise Pascal
   1 Mortimer J Adler

NEW FULL DB (2.4M)

1232 Blaise Pascal
   2 Terry McMillan
   2 Rolf Dobelli
   2 Peter Enns
   2 Kevin Horsley
   2 James K A Smith
   2 Allen Eskens

1:Chess is the gymnasium of the mind. ~ Blaise Pascal,

2:Eloquence is a painting of the thoughts.    ~ Blaise Pascal,

3:Love has reasons which reason cannot understand.    ~ Blaise Pascal,

4:The heart has its reasons which reason knows not.    ~ Blaise Pascal,

5:There are three sources of belief: reason, custom, inspiration. ~ Blaise Pascal,

6:Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true.    ~ Blaise Pascal,

7:It is man's natural sickness to believe that he possesses the truth.    ~ Blaise Pascal,

8: Small minds are concerned with the extraordinary, great minds with the ordinary." ~ Blaise Pascal,

9:Small minds are concerned with the extraordinary, great minds with the ordinary.    ~ Blaise Pascal,

10:All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.    ~ Blaise Pascal, [T5],

11:Ecclesiastes shows that man without God is in total ignorance and inevitable misery. ~ Blaise Pascal,

12:Faith is different from proof; the latter is human, the former is a Gift from God.    ~ Blaise Pascal,

13:Human beings must be known to be loved; but Divine beings must be loved to be known." ~ Blaise Pascal,

14:All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone. ~ Blaise Pascal, Pensées,

15:Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction." ~ Blaise Pascal,

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

17:Clarity of mind means clarity of passion; this is why a great and clear mind loves ardently and sees distinctly what it loves.    ~ Blaise Pascal,

18: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? ~ Blaise Pascal,

19:In speaking of human things, we say that it is necessary to know them before we can love them.... the saints on the contrary say in speaking of divine things that it is necessary to love them in order to know them, and that we only enter truth through charity. ~ Blaise Pascal,

20:Thus so wretched is man that he would weary even without any cause for weariness... and so frivolous is he that, though full of a thousand reasons for weariness, the least thing, such as playing billiards or hitting a ball, is sufficient enough to amuse him.    ~ Blaise Pascal,

21:When we wish to correct with advantage, and to show another that he errs, we must notice from what side he views the matter, for on that side it is usually true, and admit that truth to him, but reveal to him the side on which it is false. He is satisfied with that, for he sees that he was not mistaken, and that he only failed to see all sides. Now, no one is offended at not seeing everything; but one does not like to be mistaken, and that perhaps arises from the fact that man naturally cannot see everything, and that naturally he cannot err in the side he looks at, since the perceptions of our senses are always true.    ~ Blaise Pascal,

22:Reading list (1972 edition)[edit] 1. Homer - Iliad, Odyssey 2. The Old Testament 3. Aeschylus - Tragedies 4. Sophocles - Tragedies 5. Herodotus - Histories 6. Euripides - Tragedies 7. Thucydides - History of the Peloponnesian War 8. Hippocrates - Medical Writings 9. Aristophanes - Comedies 10. Plato - Dialogues 11. Aristotle - Works 12. Epicurus - Letter to Herodotus; Letter to Menoecus 13. Euclid - Elements 14.Archimedes - Works 15. Apollonius of Perga - Conic Sections 16. Cicero - Works 17. Lucretius - On the Nature of Things 18. Virgil - Works 19. Horace - Works 20. Livy - History of Rome 21. Ovid - Works 22. Plutarch - Parallel Lives; Moralia 23. Tacitus - Histories; Annals; Agricola Germania 24. Nicomachus of Gerasa - Introduction to Arithmetic 25. Epictetus - Discourses; Encheiridion 26. Ptolemy - Almagest 27. Lucian - Works 28. Marcus Aurelius - Meditations 29. Galen - On the Natural Faculties 30. The New Testament 31. Plotinus - The Enneads 32. St. Augustine - On the Teacher; Confessions; City of God; On Christian Doctrine 33. The Song of Roland 34. The Nibelungenlied 35. The Saga of Burnt Njal 36. St. Thomas Aquinas - Summa Theologica 37. Dante Alighieri - The Divine Comedy;The New Life; On Monarchy 38. Geoffrey Chaucer - Troilus and Criseyde; The Canterbury Tales 39. Leonardo da Vinci - Notebooks 40. Niccolò Machiavelli - The Prince; Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy 41. Desiderius Erasmus - The Praise of Folly 42. Nicolaus Copernicus - On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres 43. Thomas More - Utopia 44. Martin Luther - Table Talk; Three Treatises 45. François Rabelais - Gargantua and Pantagruel 46. John Calvin - Institutes of the Christian Religion 47. Michel de Montaigne - Essays 48. William Gilbert - On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies 49. Miguel de Cervantes - Don Quixote 50. Edmund Spenser - Prothalamion; The Faerie Queene 51. Francis Bacon - Essays; Advancement of Learning; Novum Organum, New Atlantis 52. William Shakespeare - Poetry and Plays 53. Galileo Galilei - Starry Messenger; Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences 54. Johannes Kepler - Epitome of Copernican Astronomy; Concerning the Harmonies of the World 55. William Harvey - On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals; On the Circulation of the Blood; On the Generation of Animals 56. Thomas Hobbes - Leviathan 57. René Descartes - Rules for the Direction of the Mind; Discourse on the Method; Geometry; Meditations on First Philosophy 58. John Milton - Works 59. Molière - Comedies 60. Blaise Pascal - The Provincial Letters; Pensees; Scientific Treatises 61. Christiaan Huygens - Treatise on Light 62. Benedict de Spinoza - Ethics 63. John Locke - Letter Concerning Toleration; Of Civil Government; Essay Concerning Human Understanding;Thoughts Concerning Education 64. Jean Baptiste Racine - Tragedies 65. Isaac Newton - Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy; Optics 66. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz - Discourse on Metaphysics; New Essays Concerning Human Understanding;Monadology 67.Daniel Defoe - Robinson Crusoe 68. Jonathan Swift - A Tale of a Tub; Journal to Stella; Gulliver's Travels; A Modest Proposal 69. William Congreve - The Way of the World 70. George Berkeley - Principles of Human Knowledge 71. Alexander Pope - Essay on Criticism; Rape of the Lock; Essay on Man 72. Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu - Persian Letters; Spirit of Laws 73. Voltaire - Letters on the English; Candide; Philosophical Dictionary 74. Henry Fielding - Joseph Andrews; Tom Jones 75. Samuel Johnson - The Vanity of Human Wishes; Dictionary; Rasselas; The Lives of the Poets    ~ Mortimer J Adler,

*** WISDOM TROVE ***

1:The self is hateful. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

2:Faith is a gift of God. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

3:We like to be deceived. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

4:May God never abandon me. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

5:A jester, a bad character. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

6:Vanity is but the surface. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

7:To understand is to forgive. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

8:Continuous eloquence wearies. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

9:Imagination decides everything. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

10:Man is neither angel nor beast. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

11:The only shame is to have none. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

12:Continuous eloquence is tedious. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

13:Law, without force, is impotent. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

14:True eloquence scorns eloquence. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

15:Continued eloquence is wearisome. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

16:No animal admires another animal. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

17:By thought I embrace the universe. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

18:Opinion is the queen of the world. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

19:Wisdom leads us back to childhood. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

20:Admiration spoils all from infancy. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

21:Brave deeds are wasted when hidden. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

22:Chess is the gymnasium of the mind. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

23:Let each of us examine his thoughts ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

24:Custom determines what is agreeable. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

25:Men blaspheme what they do not know. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

26:The property of power is to protect. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

27:All our dignity lies in our thoughts. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

28:Eloquence is the painting of thought. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

29:Evil is easy, and has infinite forms. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

30:Continuity in everything is unpleasant. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

31:Eloquence is a painting of the thoughts. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

32:Great and small suffer the same mishaps. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

33:Not to be mad is another form of madness ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

34:The gospel to me is simply irresistible. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

35:Look for the truth, it wants to be found. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

36:The stream is always purer at its source. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

37:If ignorance were bliss, he'd be a blister ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

38:Ugly deeds are most estimable when hidden. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

39:Unless we love the truth we cannot know it. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

40:We never love a person, but only qualities. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

41:The best defense against logic is ignorance. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

42:There is a God-shaped vacuum in every heart. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

43:Earnestness is enthusiasm tempered by reason. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

44:Man's greatness lies in his power of thought. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

45:Mutual cheating is the foundation of society. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

46:The eternal Being is forever if he is at all. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

47:To scorn philosophy is truly to philosophize. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

48:Clarity of mind means clarity of passion, too. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

49:To ridicule philosophy is truly philosophical. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

50:It is not certain that everything is uncertain. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

51:Kind words produce their images on men's souls. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

52:Man governs himself more by impulse than reason ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

53:The struggle alone pleases us, not the victory. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

54:The war existing between the senses and reason. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

55:Love has no age as it is always renewing itself. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

56:Love has reasons which reason cannot understand. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

57:Our natures lie in motion, without which we die. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

58:The entire ocean is affected by a single pebble. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

59:The state of man is inconstancy, ennui, anxiety. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

60:I should not be a Christian but for the miracles. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

61:(Man,) the glory and the scandal of the universe. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

62:Noble deeds that are concealed are most esteemed. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

63:To find recreation in amusement is not happiness. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

64:To ridicule philosophy is really to philosophize. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

65:All of our reasoning ends in surrender to feeling. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

66:If I had more time I would write a shorter letter. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

67:Making fun of philosophy is really philosophising. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

68:Good deeds, when concealed, are the most admirable. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

69:Habit is a second nature, which destroys the first. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

70:Justice is as much a matter of fashion as charm is. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

71:Nothing is surer than that the people will be weak. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

72:Things are always at their best in their beginning. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

73:You always admire what you really don't understand. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

74:If you do not love too much, you do not love enough. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

75:Lust is the source of all our actions, and humanity. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

76:Mediocrity makes the most of its native possessions. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

77:Nothing gives rest but the sincere search for truth. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

78:Our nature lies in movement; complete calm is death. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

79:The more I see of Mankind, the more I prefer my dog. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

80:There is a God-shaped hole in the life of every man. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

81:We only consult the ear because the heart is wanting. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

82:When intuition and logic agree, you are always right. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

83:All our reasoning boils down to yielding to sentiment. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

84:All our troubles come from not being able to be alone. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

85:Dull minds are never either intuitive or mathematical. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

86:Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

87:Our nature consists in motion; complete rest is death. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

88:The knowledge of God is very far from the love of Him. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

89:There are people who lie simply for the sake of lying. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

90:-We are full of things which take us out of ourselves. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

91:If men knew themselves, God would heal and pardon them. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

92:It is the heart which perceives God and not the reason. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

93:We have an idea of truth, invincible to all scepticism. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

94:Everyone, without exception, is searching for happiness. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

95:It is the contest that delights us, and not the victory. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

96:Man's grandeur is that he knows himself to be miserable. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

97:The God of the infinite is the God of the infinitesimal. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

98:The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

99:Which is the more believable of the two, Moses or China? ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

100:Nothing is so conformable to reason as to disavow reason. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

101:Those we call the ancients were really new in everything. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

102:Two things control men's nature, instinct and experience. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

103:What are our natural principles but principles of custom? ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

104:How hollow is the heart of man, and how full of excrement! ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

105:If a man is not made for God, why is he happy only in God? ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

106:Little things console us because little things afflict us. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

107:The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

108:When one does not love too much, one does not love enough. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

109:A mere trifle consoles us, for a mere trifle distresses us. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

110:I bring you the gift of these four words: I believe in you. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

111:In difficult times carry something beautiful in your heart. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

112:Most of man's trouble comes from his inability to be still. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

113:Nature, which alone is good, is wholly familiar and common. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

114:To have no time for philosophy is to be a true philosopher. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

115:When we read too fast or too slowly, we understand nothing. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

116:Fear not, provided you fear; but if you fear not, then fear. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

117:I can approve of those only who seek in tears for happiness. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

118:Instinct teaches us to look for happiness outside ourselves. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

119:Something incomprehensible is not for that reason less real. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

120:Atheism shows strength of mind, but only to a certain degree. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

121:To go beyond the bounds of moderation is to outrage humanity. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

122:We know truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

123:A little thing comforts us because a little thing afflicts us. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

124:If there were only one religion, God would indeed be manifest. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

125:If you want others to have a good opinion of you, say nothing. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

126:It is an appalling thing to feel all one possesses drain away. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

127:It is impossible on reasonable grounds to disbelieve miracles. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

128:Nothing is more dastardly than to act with bravado toward God. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

129:Rivers are roads that move and carry us whither we wish to go. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

130:Description of man: dependence, longing for independence, need. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

131:Faith embraces many truths which seem to contradict each other. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

132:Nature confuses the skeptics and reason confutes the dogmatists ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

133:Perfect clarity would profit the intellect but damage the will. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

134:Man lives between the infinitely large and the infinitely small. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

135:The last thing we decide in writing a book is what to put first. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

136:The married should not forget that to speak of love begets love. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

137:Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

138:Orthodoxy on one side of the Pyrenees may be heresy on the other. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

139:The multitude which does not reduce itself to unity is confusion. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

140:Law was once introduced without reason, and has become reasonable. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

141:Losses are comparative; imagination only makes them of any moment. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

142:That a religion may be true, it must have knowledge of our nature. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

143:There would be too great darkness, if truth had not visible signs. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

144:they do not know that they seek only the chase and not the quarry. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

145:Rivers are highways that move on and bear us whither we wish to go. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

146:What a vast difference there is between knowing God and loving Him. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

147:Everything that is written merely to please the author is worthless. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

148:It is man's natural sickness to believe that he possesses the Truth. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

149:It is not good to be too free. It is not good to have all one wants. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

150:Our reason is always disappointed by the inconstancy of appearances. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

151:The world is ruled by force, not by opinion; but opinion uses force. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

152:To call a king "Prince" is pleasing, because it diminishes his rank. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

153:Any unity which doesn't have its origin in the multitudes is tyranny. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

154:Having been unable to strengthen justice, we have justified strength. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

155:The world is satisfied with words. Few appreciate the things beneath. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

156:Unable to make what is just strong, we have made what is strong just. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

157:We are never in search of things, but always in search of the search. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

158:All evil stems from this-that we do. Know how to handle your solitude. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

159:All man's troubles come from not knowing how to sit still in one room. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

160:Do you wish people to think well of you? Don't speak well of yourself. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

161:Each one is all in all to himself; for being dead, all is dead to him. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

162:Everything that is incomprehensible does not, however, cease to exist. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

163:The heart has arguments with which the logic of mind is not aquainted. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

164:Jesus Christ came to tell men that they have no enemies but themselves. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

165:Meanings receive their dignity from words instead of giving it to them. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

166:Those honor nature well, who teach that she can speak on everything... ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

167:Justice without force is powerless; force without justice is tyrannical. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

168:Opinion is, as it were, the queen of the world, but force is its tyrant. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

169:Rivers are roads which move, and which carry us whither we desire to go. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

170:The world is satisfied with words, few care to dive beneath the surface. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

171:Dans une grande a" me tout est grand. In a great soul everything isgreat. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

172:It is not in Montaigne, but in myself, that I find all that I see in him. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

173:The end point of rationality is to demonstrate the limits of rationality. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

174:He who does not know his way to the sea should take a river for his guide. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

175:All human unhappiness comes from not knowing how to stay quietly in a room. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

176:All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

177:All the good maxims which are in the world fail when applied to one's self. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

178:Do you wish people to speak well of you? Then do not speak at all yourself. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

179:No soul of high estate can take pleasure in slander. It betrays a weakness. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

180:The more intelligent a man is, the more originality he discovers in others. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

181:There are plenty of maxims in the world; all that remains is to apply them. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

182:All the maxims have been written. It only remains to put them into practice. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

183:It is not possible to have reasonable grounds for not believing in miracles. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

184:The law required what it could not give. Grace gives that which it requires. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

185:All sorrow has its root in man's inability to sit quiet in a room by himself. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

186:Don't try to add more years to your life. Better add more life to your years. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

187:Force rules the world-not opinion; but it is opinion that makes use of force. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

188:Our achievements of today are but the sum total of our thoughts of yesterday. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

189:Custom creates the whole of equity, for the simple reason that it is accepted. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

190:Imagination is the deceptive part in man, the mistress of error and falsehood. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

191:Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

192:We must learn our limits. We are all something, but none of us are everything. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

193:What amazes me most is to see that everyone is not amazed at his own weakness. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

194:Most of the evils of life arise from man's being unable to sit still in a room. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

195:Our own interests are still an exquisite means for dazzling our eyes agreeably. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

196:The last thing that we find in making a book is to know what we must put first. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

197:True eloquence makes light of eloquence. True morality makes light of morality. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

198:You corrupt religion either in favour of your friends, or against your enemies. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

199:It is not permitted to the most equitable of men to be a judge in his own cause. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

200:Man is so made that if he is told often enough that he is a fool he believes it. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

201:Seeing too much to deny and too little to be sure, I am in a state to be pitied. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

202:Silence is the greatest persecution; never do the saints keep themselves silent. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

203:Small minds are concerned with the extraordinary, great minds with the ordinary. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

204:All human evil comes from a single cause, man's inability to sit still in a room. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

205:All the miseries of mankind come from one thing, not knowing how to remain alone. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

206:Flies are so mighty that they win battles, paralyse our minds, eat up our bodies. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

207:However vast a man's spiritual resources, he is capable of but one great passion. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

208:The sum of a man's problems come from his inability to be alone in a silent room. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

209:The supreme function of reason is to show man that some things are beyond reason. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

210:To deny, to believe, and to doubt well, are to a man what the race is to a horse. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

211:You're basically killing each other to see who's got the better imaginary friend. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

212:All this visible world is but an imperceptible point in the ample bosom of nature. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

213:Faith is different from proof; the latter is human, the former is a Gift from God. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

214:Few men speak humbly of humility, chastely of chastity, skeptically of skepticism. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

215:For nature is an image of Grace, and visible miracles are images of the invisible. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

216:Jurisdiction is not given for the sake of the judge, but for that of the litigant. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

217:When we are in love we seem to ourselves quite different from what we were before. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

218:Vanity is illustrated in the cause and effect of love, as in the case of Cleopatra. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

219:We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

220:All the trouble in the world is due to the fact that man cannot sit still in a room. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

221:Human beings must be known to be loved; but Divine beings must be loved to be known. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

222:If a soldier or labourer complain of the hardship of his lot, set him to do nothing. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

223:Passion cannot be beautiful without excess; one either loves too much or not enough. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

224:It is not our task to secure the triumph of truth, but merely to fight on its behalf. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

225:Reason's last step is to acknowledge that there are infinitely many things beyond it. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

226:All of our miseries prove our greatness. They are the miseries of a dethroned monarch. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

227:All that tends not to charity is figurative. The sole aim of the Scripture is charity. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

228:Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

229:Education produces natural intuitions, and natural intuitions are erased by education. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

230:Excuse me, pray." Without that excuse I would not have known there was anything amiss. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

231:Once your soul has been enlarged by a truth, it can never return to its original size. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

232:Voluptuousness, like justice, is blind, but that is the only resemblance between them. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

233:Discourses on humility are a source of pride in the vain and of humility in the humble. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

234:Force and not opinion is the queen of the world; but it is opinion that uses the force. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

235:Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

236:Amusement that is excessive and followed only for its own sake, allures and deceives us. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

237:Chance gives rise to thoughts, and chance removes them; no art can keep or acquire them. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

238:Death is easier to bear without thinking of it, than the thought of death without peril. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

239:Mankind suffers from two excesses: to exclude reason, and to live by nothing but reason. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

240:There are two equally dangerous extremes-to shut reason out, and to let nothing else in. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

241:Faith is a sounder guide than reason. Reason can only go so far, but faith has no limits. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

242:Happiness is neither within us, nor without us. It is in the union of ourselves with God. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

243:It is not shameful for a man to succumb to pain and it is shameful to succumb to pleasure. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

244:Not only do we know God through Jesus Christ, we only know ourselves through Jesus Christ. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

245:The present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

246:Few friendships would survive if each one knew what his friend says of him behind his back. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

247:God has given us evidence sufficiently clear to convince those with an open heart and mind. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

248:If we examine our thoughts, we shall find them always occupied with the past or the future. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

249:Thinking too little about things or thinking too much both make us obstinate and fanatical. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

250:We must keep our thought secret, and judge everything by it, while talking like the people. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

251:We must make good people wish that the Christian faith were true, and then show that it is. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

252:Why God has instituted Prayer:— To communicate to his creatures the dignity of causation. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

253:If man should commence by studying himself, he would see how impossible it is to go further. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

254:Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

255:Now, if the passions had no hold on us, a week and a hundred years would amount to the same. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

256:Reason is the slow and torturous method by which those who do not know the truth discover it ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

257:The charm of fame is so great that we like every object to which it is attached, even death. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

258:The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

259:The sole cause of all human misery is the inability of people to sit quietly in their rooms. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

260:The sweetness of glory is so great that, join it to what we will, even to death, we love it. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

261:Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

262:The sole cause of man's unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

263:When a soldier complains of his hard life (or a labourer, etc.) try giving him nothing to do. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

264:Curiosity is only vanity. We usually only want to know something so that we can talk about it. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

265:If man were happy, he would be the more so, the less he was diverted, like the saints and God. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

266:All mankind's troubles are caused by one single thing, which is their inability to sit quietly. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

267:Christian piety annihilates the egoism of the heart; worldly politeness veils and represses it. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

268:Too much and too little wine. Give him none, he cannot find truth; give him too much, the same. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

269:We never do evil so effectually as when we are led to do it by a false principle of conscience. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

270:Apart from Jesus Christ, we do not know what is our life, nor our death, nor God, nor ourselves. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

271:Condition de l'homme: inconstance, ennui, inquie Man's condition. Inconstancy, boredom, anxiety. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

272:It is superstitious to put one's hopes in formalities, but arrogant to refuse to submit to them. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

273:The captain of a ship is not chosen from those of the passengers who comes from the best family. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

274:A man does not show his greatness by being at one extremity, but rather by touching both at once. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

275:Amusement allures and deceives us and leads us down imperceptibly in thoughtlessness to the grave ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

276:Curiosity is nothing more than vanity. More often than not we only seek knowledge to show it off. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

277:Not the zeal alone of those who seek Him proves God, but the blindness of those who seek Him not. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

278:It is incomprehensible that God should exist, and it is incomprehensible that he should not exist. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

279:Symmetry is what we see at a glance; based on the fact that there is no reason for any difference. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

280:The last function of reason is to recognize that there are an infinity of things which surpass it. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

281:We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put something before us to prevent us seeing it. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

282:We run heedlessly into the abyss after putting something in front of us to stop us from seeing it. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

283:All I know is that I must soon die, but what I know least is this very death which I cannot escape. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

284:An advocate who has been well paid in advance will find the cause he is pleading all the more just. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

285:At the centre of every human being is a God-shaped vacuum which can only be filled by Jesus Christ. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

286:I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

287:Must we kill to prevent there being any wicked? This is to make both parties wicked instead of one. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

288:That we must love one God only is a thing so evident that it does not require miracles to prove it. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

289:There is no arena in which vanity displays itself under such a variety of forms as in conversation. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

290:What a chimera then is man. What a novelty! What a monster... what a contradiction, what a prodigy ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

291:It is not only old and early impressions that deceive us; the charms of novelty have the same power. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

292:Justice and truth are two such subtle points, that our tools are too blunt to touch them accurately. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

293:Thought makes the whole dignity of man; therefore endeavor to think well, that is the only morality. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

294:By space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an atom; by thought I comprehend the world. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

295:Is it courage in a dying man to go, in weakness and in agony, to affront an almighty and eternal God? ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

296:[On vanity:] The nose of Cleopatra: if it had been shorter, the face of the earth would have changed. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

297:Eloquence; it requires the pleasant and the real; but the pleasant must itself be drawn from the true. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

298:The weakness of human reason appears more evidently in those who know it not than in those who know it. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

299:We are only falsehood, duplicity, contradiction; we both conceal and disguise ourselves from ourselves. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

300:What a strange vanity painting is; it attracts admiration by resembling the original, we do not admire. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

301:It is right that what is just should be obeyed. It is necessary that what is strongest should be obeyed. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

302:The whole title by which you possess your property, is not a title of nature but of a human institution. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

303:All the troubles of life come upon us because we refuse to sit quietly for a while each day in our rooms. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

304:In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

305:One must have deeper motives and judge everything accordingly, but go on talking like an ordinary person. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

306:The Fall is an offense to human reason, but once accepted, it makes perfect sense of the human condition. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

307:The strength of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

308:The truth about nature we discover with our brains. The truth about religion we discover with our hearts. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

309:He who cannot believe is cursed, for he reveals by his unbelief that God has not chosen to give him grace. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

310:If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

311:Plurality which is not reduced to unity is confusion; unity which does not depend on plurality is tyranny. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

312:Some vices only lay hold of us by means of others, and these, like branches, fall on removal of the trunk. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

313:Those whom we call ancient were really new in all things, and properly constituted the infancy of mankind. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

314:We view things not only from different sides, but with different eyes; we have no wish to find them alike. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

315:All the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

316:Do little things as if they were great, because of the majesty of the Lord Jesus Christ who dwells in thee. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

317:I maintain that, if everyone knew what others said about him, there would not be four friends in the world. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

318:It's not those who write the laws that have the greatest impact on society. It's those who write the songs. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

319:All mankind's unhappiness derives from one thing: his inability to know how to remain in repose in one room. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

320:Il n'est pas certain que tout soit incertain. (Translation: It is not certain that everything is uncertain.) ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

321:Jesus is the God whom we can approach without pride and before whom we can humble ourselves without despair. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

322:The great mass of people judge well of things, for they are in natural ignorance, which is man's true state. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

323:Those are weaklings who know the truth and uphold it as long as it suits their purpose, and then abandon it. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

324:Man's sensitivity to the little things and insensitivity to the greatest are the signs of a strange disorder. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

325:The sensitivity of men to small matters, and their indifference to great ones, indicates a strange inversion. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

326:How vain is painting, which is admired for reproducing the likeness of things whose originals are not admired. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

327:Since we cannot know all that there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

328:Those who are clever in imagination are far more pleased with themselves than prudent men could reasonably be. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

329:Words differently arranged have a different meaning, and meanings differently arranged have different effects. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

330:Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for our miseries. Yet it is itself the greatest of our miseries. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

331:How vain painting is, exciting admiration by its resemblance to things of which we do not admire the originals. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

332:The serene, silent beauty of a holy life is the most powerful influence in the world, next to the night of God. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

333:Beauty is a harmonious relation between something in our nature and the quality of the object which delights us. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

334:I rather live as if God exists to find out that He doesn't than live as if he doesn't exist to find out He does. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

335:Men seek rest in a struggle against difficulties; and when they have conquered these, rest becomes insufferable. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

336:The Church limits her sacramental services to the faithful. Christ gave Himself upon the cross a ransom for all. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

337:We never live, but we hope to live; and as we are always arranging to be happy, it must be that we never are so. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

338:Between us, and Hell or Heaven, there is only life between the two, which is the most fragile thing in the world. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

339:Happiness can be found neither in ourselves nor in external things, but in God and in ourselves as united to him. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

340:He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God's providence to lead him aright. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

341:Man is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness from which he emerges and the infinity in which he is engulfed. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

342:We implore the mercy of God, not that He may leave us at peace in our vices, but that He may deliver us from them. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

343:How shall one who is so weak in his childhood become really strong when he grows older? We only change our fancies. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

344: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. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

345:When we see a natural style, we are astonished and charmed; for we expected to see an author, and we find a person. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

346:If our condition were truly happy, we would not need diversion from thinking of it in order to make ourselves happy. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

347:Instead of complaining that God had hidden himself, you will give Him thanks for having revealed so much of Himself. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

348:The imagination disposes of everything. It creates beauty, justice, and happiness, which are the whole of the world. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

349:The more intelligence one has, the more people one finds original. Commonplace people see no difference between men. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

350:Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

351:We are usually convinced more easily by reasons we have found ourselves than by those which have occurred to others. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

352:If we regulate our conduct according to our own convictions, we may safely disregard the praise or censure of others. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

353:Nothing fortifies scepticism more than that there are some who are not sceptics; if all were so, they would be wrong. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

354:Two similar faces, neither of which alone causes laughter, use laughter when they are together, by their resemblance. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

355:Nature has some perfections to show that she is the image of God, and some defects to show that she is only His image. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

356:The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

357:There is enough light for those who only desire to see, and enough obscurity for those who have a contrary disposition ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

358:Tout notre raisonnement se re duit a'   ce  der au sentiment. All our reasoning comes down to surrendering to feeling. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

359:Extremes are for us as if they were not, and as if we were not in regard to them; they escape from us, or we from them. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

360:God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and the scholars. I will not forget thy word. Amen. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

361:How vain painting is-we admire the realistic depiction of objects which in their original state we don't admire at all. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

362:Le silence e ternel de ces espaces infinis m'effraie. The eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills me with dread. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

363:Man's true nature being lost, everything becomes his nature; as, his true good being lost, everything becomes his good. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

364:There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who think they are sinners and the sinners who think they are righteous. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

365:Who knows if this other half of life where we think we're awake is not another sleep a little different from the first. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

366:Equality of possessions is no doubt right, but, as men could not make might obey right, they have made right obey might. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

367:The incredulous are the more credulous. They believe the miracles of Vespasian that they may not believe those of Moses. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

368:The past and present are only our means; the future is always our end. Thus we never really live, but only hope to live. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

369:Vanity is so secure in the heart of man that everyone wants to be admired: even I who write this, and you who read this. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

370:Notre nature est dans le mouvement; le repos entier est la mort. Our nature consists in movement; absolute rest is death. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

371:People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

372:The greatest single distinguishing feature of the omnipotence of God is that our imagination gets lost thinking about it. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

373:The statements of atheists ought to be perfectly clear of doubt. Now it is not perfectly clear that the soul is material. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

374:Concupiscence and force are the source of all our actions; concupiscence causes voluntary actions, force involuntary ones. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

375:The mind has its arrangement; it proceeds from principles to demonstrations. The heart has a different mode of proceeding. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

376:Desire and force between them are responsible for all our actions; desire causes our voluntary acts, force our involuntary. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

377:Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

378:Man is obviously made for thinking. Therein lies all his dignity and his merit; and his whole duty is to think as he ought. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

379:We must kill them in war, just because they live beyond the river. If they lived on this side, we would be called murderers. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

380:What part of us feels pleasure? Is it our hand, our arm, our flesh, or our blood? It must obviously be something immaterial. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

381:It is the heart which perceives God and not the reason. That is what faith is: God perceived by the heart, not by the reason. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

382:That which makes us go so far for love is that we never think that we might have need of anything besides that which we love. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

383:There should be in eloquence that which is pleasing and that which is real; but that which is pleasing should itself be real. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

384:It is good to be tired and wearied by the futile search after the true good, that we may stretch out our arms to the Redeemer. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

385:It is your own assent to yourself, and the constant voice of your own reason, and not of others, that should make you believe. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

386:The consciousness of the falsity of present pleasures, and the ignorance of the vanity of absent pleasures, cause inconstancy. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

387:The last advance of reason is to recognize that it is surpassed by innumerable things; it is feeble if it cannot realize that. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

388:Console-toi, tu ne me chercherais pas si tu ne m'avais trouve . Comfort yourself.You would not seek me if you had not found me. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

389:Death itself is less painful when it comes upon us unawares than the bare contemplation of it, even when danger is far distant. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

390:I can well conceive a man without hands, feet, head. But I cannot conceive man without thought; he would be a stone or a brute. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

391:It is the conduct of God, who disposes all things kindly, to put religion into the mind by reason, and into the heart by grace. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

392:L'on a beau se cacher a' soi-me"  me, l'on aime toujours. We vainly conceal from ourselves the fact that we are always in love. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

393:Men often take their imagination for their heart; and they believe they are converted as soon as they think of being converted. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

394:Being unable to cure death, wretchedness, and ignorance, men have decided, in order to be happy, not to think about such things. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

395:If man made himself the first object of study, he would see how incapable he is of going further. How can a part know the whole? ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

396:Men are so completely fools by necessity that he is but a fool in a higher strain of folly who does not confess his foolishness. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

397:We must know where to doubt, where to feel certain, where to submit. He who does not do so, understands not the force of reason. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

398:Anyone who found the secret of rejoicing when things go well without being annoyed when they go badly would have found the point. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

399:Faith indeed tells what the senses do not tell, but not the contrary of what they see. It is above them and not contrary to them. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

400:Civil wars are the greatest of evils. They are inevitable, if we wish to reward merit, for all will say that they are meritorious. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

401:Muhammad established a religion by putting his enemies to death; Jesus Christ by commanding his followers to lay down their lives. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

402:Nothing is so intolerable to man as being fully at rest, without a passion, without business, without entertainment, without care. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

403:One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life and there is nothing better. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

404:Clarity of mind means clarity of passion, too; this is why a great and clear mind loves ardently and sees distinctly what it loves. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

405:The multitude which is not brought to act as a unity, is confusion. That unity which has not its origin in the multitude is tyranny. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

406:All men have happiness as their object: there is no exception. However different the means they employ, they all aim at the same end. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

407:It is a dangerous experiment to call in gratitude as an ally to love. Love is a debt which inclination always pays, obligation never. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

408: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. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

409:It has pleased God that divine verities should not enter the heart through the understanding, but the understanding through the heart. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

410:How I hate this folly of not believing in the Eucharist, etc.! If the gospel be true, if Jesus Christ be God, what difficulty is there? ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

411:Montaigne is wrong in declaring that custom ought to be followed simply because it is custom, and not because it is reasonable or just. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

412:It is natural for the mind to believe and for the will to love; so that, for want of true objects, they must attach themselves to false. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

413:If you want to be a real seeker of truth, you need to, at least once in your lifetime, doubt in, as much as it's possible, in everything. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

414:We make an idol of truth itself; for truth apart from charity is not God, but His image and idol, which we must neither love nor worship. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

415:Eloquence is a painting of thought; and thus those who, after having painted it, add something more, make a picture instead of a portrait. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

416:There are vices which have no hold upon us, but in connection with others; and which, when you cut down the trunk, fall like the branches. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

417: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. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

418:What a difficult thing it is to ask someone's advice on a matter without coloring his judgment by the way in which we present our problem. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

419:If god does not exist, one loses nothing by believing in him anyway, while if he does exist, one stands to lose everything by not believing. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

420:That dog is mine said those poor children; that place in the sun is mine; such is the beginning and type of usurpation throughout the earth. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

421:Religion is so great a thing that it is right that those who will not take the trouble to seek it if it be obscure, should be deprived of it. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

422: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. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

423:All err the more dangerously because each follows a truth. Their mistake lies not in following a falsehood but in not following another truth. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

424: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. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

425:Reason commands us far more imperiously than a master; for in disobeying the one we are unfortunate, and in disobeying the other we are fools. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

426:When some passion or effect is described in a natural style, we find within ourselves the truth of what we hear, without knowing it was there. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

427: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. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

428:Nothing is thoroughly approved but mediocrity. The majority has established this, and it fixes its fangs on whatever gets beyond it either way. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

429:Our notion of symmetry is derived form the human face. Hence, we demand symmetry horizontally and in breadth only, not vertically nor in depth. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

430:To doubt is a misfortune, but to seek when in doubt is an indispensable duty. So he who doubts and seeks not is at once unfortunate and unfair. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

431:If it is an extraordinary blindness to live without investigating what we are, it is a terrible one to live an evil life, while believing in God ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

432: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 ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

433:Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer the same persons. Neither the offender nor the offended are any more themselves. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

434: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. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

435:The last act is bloody, however pleasant all the rest of the play is: a little earth is thrown at last upon our head, and that is the end forever. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

436:E? loquence quipersuade par douceur, non par empire, en tyran, non en roi. Eloquence should persuade gently, not by force or like a tyrant or king. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

437:Faith affirms many things, respecting which the senses are silent, but nothing that they deny. It is superior, but never opposed to their testimony ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

438:I would have far more fear of being mistaken, and of finding that the Christian religion was true, than of not being mistaken in believing it true. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

439:Je ne crois que les histoires dont les te moins se feraient e  I only believe in histories told by witnesses who would have had their throats slit. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

440:The present is never the mark of our designs. We use both past and present as our means and instruments, but the future only as our object and aim. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

441:Le silence est la plus grande perse cution: jamais les saints ne se sont tus. Silence is the greatest of all persecutions: no saint was ever silent. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

442:The mind naturally makes progress, and the will naturally clings to objects; so that for want of right objects, it will attach itself to wrong ones. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

443: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. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

444:We are not satisfied with real life; we want to live some imaginary life in the eyes of other people and to seem different from what we actually are. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

445:We like security: we like the pope to be infallible in matters of faith, and grave doctors to be so in moral questions so that we can feel reassured. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

446:When we would think of God, how many things we find which turn us away from Him, and tempt us to think otherwise. All this is evil, yet it is innate. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

447:As men are not able to fight against death, misery, ignorance, they have taken it into their heads, in order to be happy, not to think of them at all. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

448: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. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

449:The Christian religion teaches me two points-that there is a God whom men can know, and that their nature is so corrupt that they are unworthy of Him. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

450:The finite is annihilated in the presence of the infinite, and becomes a pure nothing. So our spirit before God, so our justice before divine justice. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

451:Justice is what is established; and thus all our established laws will necessarily be regarded as just without examination, since they are established. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

452:Nature has made all her truths independent of one another. Our art makes one dependent on the other. But this is not natural. Each keeps its own place. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

453:No man ever believes with a true and saving faith unless God inclines his heart; and no man when God does incline his heart can refrain from believing. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

454:All men naturally hate one another. I hold it a fact, that if men knew exactly what one says of the other, there would not be four friends in the world. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

455:God only pours out his light into the mind after having subdued the rebellion of the will by an altogether heavenly gentleness which charms and wins it. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

456:The parts of the universe ... all are connected with each other in such a way that I think it to be impossible to understand any one without the whole. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

457: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! ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

458:When a man who accepts the Christian doctrine lives unworthily of it, it is much clearer to say he is a bad Christian than to say he is not a Christian. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

459:The weather and my mood have little connection. I have my foggy and my fine days within me; my prosperity or misfortune has little to do with the matter. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

460:Those who do not hate their own selfishness and regard themselves as more important than the rest of the world are blind because the truth lies elsewhere ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

461:Our soul is cast into a body, where it finds number, time, dimension. Thereupon it reasons, and calls this nature necessity, and can believe nothing else. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

462:Quelque e tendue d'esprit que l'on ait, l'on n'est capable que d'une grande passion. However vast a man's spirit, he is only capable of one great passion. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

463:There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

464:Continuous eloquence wearies. Grandeur must be abandoned to be appreciated. Continuity in everything is unpleasant. Cold is agreeable, that we may get warm. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

465:Who can doubt that we exist only to love? Disguise it, in fact, as we will, we love without intermission... We live not a moment exempt from its influence. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

466:The art of revolutionizing and overturning states is to undermine established customs, by going back to their origin, in order to mark their want of justice. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

467:All is one, all is different. How many natures exist in man? How many vocations? And by what chance does each man ordinarily choose what he has heard praised? ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

468:In proportion as our own mind is enlarged we discover a greater number of men of originality. Commonplace people see no difference between one man and another. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

469:No one is ignorant that there are two avenues by which opinions are received into the soul, which are its two principal powers: the understanding and the will. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

470:The art of subversion, of revolution, is to dislodge established customs by probing down to their origins in order to show how they lack authority and justice. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

471:The philosophers talk to you about the dignity of man, and they tempt you to pride, or they talk to you about the misery of man, and they tempt you to despair. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

472:There are some who speak well and write badly. For the place and the audience warm them, and draw from their minds more than they think of without that warmth. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

473:I cannot judge my work while I am doing it. I have to do as painters do, stand back and view it from a distance, but not too great a distance. How great? Guess. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

474:Il est non seulement impossible, mais inutile de conna|"tre Dieu sans Je sus-Christ. It is not only impossible, but also useless to recognize God without Jesus. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

475:One-half of the ills of life come because men are unwilling to sit down quietly for thirty minutes to think through all the possible consequences of their acts. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

476:Notwithstanding the sight of all our miseries, which press upon us and take us by the throat, we have an instinct which we cannot repress, and which lifts us up. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

477:When everyone is moving towards depravity, no one seems to be moving, but if someone stops he shows up the others who are rushing on, by acting as a fixed point. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

478:When we wish to correct with advantage, and to show another that he errs, we must notice from what side he views the matter, for on that side it is usually true. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

479:And is it not obvious that, just as it is a crime to disturb the peace when truth reigns, it is also a crime to remain at peace when the truth is being destroyed? ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

480:If we must not act save on a certainty, we ought not to act on religion, for it is not certain. But how many things we do on an uncertainty, sea voyages, battles! ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

481:Too much pleasure disagrees with us. Too many concords are annoying in music; too many benefits irritate us; we wish to have the wherewithal to overpay our debts. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

482: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. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

483:We are only troubled by the fears which we, and not nature, give ourselves, for they add to the state in which we are the passions of the state in which we are not. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

484:What can be seen on earth points to neither the total absence nor the obvious presence of divinity, but to the presence of a hidden God. Everything bears this mark. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

485:La vraie e loquence se moque de l'e  loquence, la vraie morale se moque de la morale. True eloquence has notime foreloquence, true morality has no time for morality. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

486:Nothing is good but mediocrity. The majority has settled that, and finds fault with him who escapes it at whichever end... To leave the mean is to abandon humanity. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

487: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. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

488:Curiosity is only vanity. Most frequently we wish not to know, but to talk. We would not take a sea voyage for the sole pleasure of seeing without hope of ever telling. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

489:Imagination cannot make fools wise, but it makes them happy, as against reason, which only makes its friends wretched: one covers them with glory, the other with shame. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

490:Lord, help me to do great things as though they were little, since I do them with your power; And little things as though they were great, since I do them in your name! ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

491: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. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

492:Let it not be imagined that the life of a good Christian must be a life of melancholy and gloominess; for he only resigns some pleasures to enjoy others infinitely better. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

493: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. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

494:If I believe in God and life after death and you do not, and if there is no God, we both lose when we die. However, if there is a God, you still lose and I gain everything. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

495:Let no one say that I have said nothing new... the arrangement of the subject is new. When we play tennis, we both play with the same ball, but one of us places it better. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

496:Necessity, that great refuge and excuse for human frailty, breaks through all law; and he is not to be accounted in fault whose crime is not the effect of choice, but force. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

497:The last proceeding of reason is to recognize that there is an infinity of things which are beyond it. There is nothing so conformable to reason as this disavowal of reason. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

498:Those who make antitheses by forcing the sense are like men who make false windows for the sake of symmetry. Their rule is not to speak justly, but to make accurate figures. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

499:All our life passes in this way: we seek rest by struggling against certain obstacles, and once they are overcome, rest proves intolerable because of the boredom it produces. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

500:If he exalts himself, I humble him. If he humbles himself, I exalt him. And I go on contradicting him Until he understands That he is a monster that passes all understanding. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove

*** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***

1:Faith is a gift of God. ~ Blaise Pascal,

2:God is enough for them. ~ Blaise Pascal,

3:We like to be deceived. ~ Blaise Pascal,

4:May God never abandon me. ~ Blaise Pascal,

5:Too much clarity darkens. ~ Blaise Pascal,

6:A jester, a bad character. ~ Blaise Pascal,

7:Vanity is but the surface. ~ Blaise Pascal,

8:I know whom I have believed. ~ Blaise Pascal,

9:Notre durée vaine et chétive ~ Blaise Pascal,

10:To understand is to forgive. ~ Blaise Pascal,

11:Continuous eloquence wearies. ~ Blaise Pascal,

12:Imagination decides everything. ~ Blaise Pascal,

13:Man is neither angel nor beast. ~ Blaise Pascal,

14:The only shame is to have none. ~ Blaise Pascal,

15:Continuous eloquence is tedious. ~ Blaise Pascal,

16:Law, without force, is impotent. ~ Blaise Pascal,

17:True eloquence scorns eloquence. ~ Blaise Pascal,

18:Wisdom is a return to childhood. ~ Blaise Pascal,

19:Continued eloquence is wearisome. ~ Blaise Pascal,

20:No animal admires another animal. ~ Blaise Pascal,

21:By thought I embrace the universe. ~ Blaise Pascal,

22:Chess is the gymnasium of the mind ~ Blaise Pascal,

23:Descartes useless and unnecessary. ~ Blaise Pascal,

24:Opinion is the queen of the world. ~ Blaise Pascal,

25:Wisdom leads us back to childhood. ~ Blaise Pascal,

26:Admiration spoils all from infancy. ~ Blaise Pascal,

27:Brave deeds are wasted when hidden. ~ Blaise Pascal,

28:Chess is the gymnasium of the mind. ~ Blaise Pascal,

29:Let each of us examine his thoughts ~ Blaise Pascal,

30:Chess is the gymnasium of the mind. ~ Blaise Pascal,

31:Custom determines what is agreeable. ~ Blaise Pascal,

32:Men blaspheme what they do not know. ~ Blaise Pascal,

33:The property of power is to protect. ~ Blaise Pascal,

34:All our dignity lies in our thoughts. ~ Blaise Pascal,

35:Eloquence is the painting of thought. ~ Blaise Pascal,

36:Evil is easy, and has infinite forms. ~ Blaise Pascal,

37:Continuity in everything is unpleasant. ~ Blaise Pascal,

38:Consequences must outweigh probabilities ~ Blaise Pascal,

39:Eloquence is a painting of the thoughts. ~ Blaise Pascal,

40:Great and small suffer the same mishaps. ~ Blaise Pascal,

41:immo et præstat gratia Dei per Christum. ~ Blaise Pascal,

42:Miracle does not always signify miracle. ~ Blaise Pascal,

43:Not to be mad is another form of madness ~ Blaise Pascal,

44:Nu m-ai fi cautat, daca nu m-ai fi gasit ~ Blaise Pascal,

45:The gospel to me is simply irresistible. ~ Blaise Pascal,

46:Look for the truth, it wants to be found. ~ Blaise Pascal,

47:The stream is always purer at its source. ~ Blaise Pascal,

48:True eloquence has no time for eloquence. ~ Blaise Pascal,

49:If ignorance were bliss, he'd be a blister ~ Blaise Pascal,

50:Ugly deeds are most estimable when hidden. ~ Blaise Pascal,

51:Eloquence is a painting of the thoughts.    ~ Blaise Pascal,

52:Noble deeds are most estimable when hidden. ~ Blaise Pascal,

53:Unless we love the truth we cannot know it. ~ Blaise Pascal,

54:We never love a person, but only qualities. ~ Blaise Pascal,

55:Le moi est ha|«s sable. The self is hateful. ~ Blaise Pascal,

56:O coração tem razões que a Razão desconhece. ~ Blaise Pascal,

57:The best defense against logic is ignorance. ~ Blaise Pascal,

58:There is a God-shaped vacuum in every heart. ~ Blaise Pascal,

59:Earnestness is enthusiasm tempered by reason. ~ Blaise Pascal,

60:El amor no tiene edad; siempre está naciendo. ~ Blaise Pascal,

61:Man's greatness lies in his power of thought. ~ Blaise Pascal,

62:Mutual cheating is the foundation of society. ~ Blaise Pascal,

63:The eternal Being is forever if he is at all. ~ Blaise Pascal,

64:To scorn philosophy is truly to philosophize. ~ Blaise Pascal,

65:Clarity of mind means clarity of passion, too. ~ Blaise Pascal,

66:The heart has reasons that reason cannot know. ~ Blaise Pascal,

67:To ridicule philosophy is truly philosophical. ~ Blaise Pascal,

68:It is not certain that everything is uncertain. ~ Blaise Pascal,

69:Kind words produce their images on men's souls. ~ Blaise Pascal,

70:Man governs himself more by impulse than reason ~ Blaise Pascal,

71:The parrot wipes its beak although it is clean. ~ Blaise Pascal,

72:The struggle alone pleases us, not the victory. ~ Blaise Pascal,

73:The war existing between the senses and reason. ~ Blaise Pascal,

74:Love has no age as it is always renewing itself. ~ Blaise Pascal,

75:Love has reasons which reason cannot understand. ~ Blaise Pascal,

76:Our natures lie in motion, without which we die. ~ Blaise Pascal,

77:The entire ocean is affected by a single pebble. ~ Blaise Pascal,

78:The state of man is inconstancy, ennui, anxiety. ~ Blaise Pascal,

79:You would not seek me if you did not possess me. ~ Blaise Pascal,

80:A trifle consoles us, for a trifle distresses us. ~ Blaise Pascal,

81:I should not be a Christian but for the miracles. ~ Blaise Pascal,

82:(Man,) the glory and the scandal of the universe. ~ Blaise Pascal,

83:Noble deeds that are concealed are most esteemed. ~ Blaise Pascal,

84:The heart has its reasons where reason knows not. ~ Blaise Pascal,

85:The heart has its reasons which reason knows not. ~ Blaise Pascal,

86:To find recreation in amusement is not happiness. ~ Blaise Pascal,

87:To ridicule philosophy is really to philosophize. ~ Blaise Pascal,

88:to think well; this is the principle of morality. ~ Blaise Pascal,

89:All of our reasoning ends in surrender to feeling. ~ Blaise Pascal,

90:Cuando no se ama demasiado no se ama lo suficiente ~ Blaise Pascal,

91:If I had more time I would write a shorter letter. ~ Blaise Pascal,

92:l'silence eternal de ces espaces infinis m'effraie ~ Blaise Pascal,

93:Making fun of philosophy is really philosophising. ~ Blaise Pascal,

94:Man's greatness comes from knowing he is wretched. ~ Blaise Pascal,

95:Good deeds, when concealed, are the most admirable. ~ Blaise Pascal,

96:Habit is a second nature, which destroys the first. ~ Blaise Pascal,

97:Justice is as much a matter of fashion as charm is. ~ Blaise Pascal,

98:Love has reasons which reason cannot understand.    ~ Blaise Pascal,

99:Nothing is surer than that the people will be weak. ~ Blaise Pascal,

100:Things are always at their best in their beginning. ~ Blaise Pascal,

101:You always admire what you really don't understand. ~ Blaise Pascal,

102:If you do not love too much, you do not love enough. ~ Blaise Pascal,

103:Le silence éternel de ces espaces infinis m'effraie. ~ Blaise Pascal,

104:Lust is the source of all our actions, and humanity. ~ Blaise Pascal,

105:Mediocrity makes the most of its native possessions. ~ Blaise Pascal,

106:Nothing gives rest but the sincere search for truth. ~ Blaise Pascal,

107:Our nature lies in movement; complete calm is death. ~ Blaise Pascal,

108:The eternal being exists for ever if he once exists. ~ Blaise Pascal,

109:The heart has its reasons which reason knows not of. ~ Blaise Pascal,

110:The heart has its reasons which reason knows not.    ~ Blaise Pascal,

111:The more I see of Mankind, the more I prefer my dog. ~ Blaise Pascal,

112:There is a God-shaped hole in the life of every man. ~ Blaise Pascal,

113:Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much ~ Blaise Pascal,

114:Kind words don't cost much. Yet they accomplish much. ~ Blaise Pascal,

115:Le cœur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point. ~ Blaise Pascal,

116:We only consult the ear because the heart is wanting. ~ Blaise Pascal,

117:When intuition and logic agree, you are always right. ~ Blaise Pascal,

118:All our reasoning boils down to yielding to sentiment. ~ Blaise Pascal,

119:All our troubles come from not being able to be alone. ~ Blaise Pascal,

120:Dull minds are never either intuitive or mathematical. ~ Blaise Pascal,

121:Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much. ~ Blaise Pascal,

122:Le coeur a ses raisons que le raison ne connaît point. ~ Blaise Pascal,

123:Our nature consists in motion; complete rest is death. ~ Blaise Pascal,

124:The heart has reasons of which the mind knows nothing. ~ Blaise Pascal,

125:The knowledge of God is very far from the love of Him. ~ Blaise Pascal,

126:There are people who lie simply for the sake of lying. ~ Blaise Pascal,

127:Tout notre raisonnement se réduit à céder au sentiment ~ Blaise Pascal,

128:If men knew themselves, God would heal and pardon them. ~ Blaise Pascal,

129:It is the heart which perceives God and not the reason. ~ Blaise Pascal,

130:To make light of philosophy is to be a true philosopher ~ Blaise Pascal,

131:We have an idea of truth, invincible to all scepticism. ~ Blaise Pascal,

132:All our reasoning comes down to surrendering to feeling. ~ Blaise Pascal,

133:Everyone, without exception, is searching for happiness. ~ Blaise Pascal,

134:It is the contest that delights us, and not the victory. ~ Blaise Pascal,

135:I would prefer an intelligent hell to a stupid paradise. ~ Blaise Pascal,

136:Man’s condition. Inconstancy, boredom, anxiety. (Page 1) ~ Blaise Pascal,

137:Man's grandeur is that he knows himself to be miserable. ~ Blaise Pascal,

138:The God of the infinite is the God of the infinitesimal. ~ Blaise Pascal,

139:The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing. ~ Blaise Pascal,

140:To make light of philosophy is to be a true philosopher. ~ Blaise Pascal,

141:We never seek things for themselves, but for the search. ~ Blaise Pascal,

142:Which is the more believable of the two, Moses or China? ~ Blaise Pascal,

143:Man without faith can know neither true good nor justice. ~ Blaise Pascal,

144:Nada nos puede consolar cuando lo pensamos detenidamente. ~ Blaise Pascal,

145:Nothing is so conformable to reason as to disavow reason. ~ Blaise Pascal,

146:The eternal silence of these infinite spaces terrifies me ~ Blaise Pascal,

147:The last act is bloody, however fine the rest of the play ~ Blaise Pascal,

148:Those we call the ancients were really new in everything. ~ Blaise Pascal,

149:Two things control men's nature, instinct and experience. ~ Blaise Pascal,

150:What are our natural principles but principles of custom? ~ Blaise Pascal,

151:How hollow is the heart of man, and how full of excrement! ~ Blaise Pascal,

152:If a man is not made for God, why is he happy only in God? ~ Blaise Pascal,

153:Little things console us because little things afflict us. ~ Blaise Pascal,

154:The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me. ~ Blaise Pascal,

155:When one does not love too much, one does not love enough. ~ Blaise Pascal,

156:A mere trifle consoles us, for a mere trifle distresses us. ~ Blaise Pascal,

157:I bring you the gift of these four words: I believe in you. ~ Blaise Pascal,

158:In difficult times carry something beautiful in your heart. ~ Blaise Pascal,

159:Little things comfort us because little things distress us. ~ Blaise Pascal,

160:Most of man's trouble comes from his inability to be still. ~ Blaise Pascal,

161:Nature, which alone is good, is wholly familiar and common. ~ Blaise Pascal,

162:To have no time for philosophy is to be a true philosopher. ~ Blaise Pascal,

163:We desire truth and find within ourselves only uncertainty. ~ Blaise Pascal,

164:When we read too fast or too slowly, we understand nothing. ~ Blaise Pascal,

165:Everything that is incomprehensible does not cease to exist. ~ Blaise Pascal,

166:Fear not, provided you fear; but if you fear not, then fear. ~ Blaise Pascal,

167:I can approve of those only who seek in tears for happiness. ~ Blaise Pascal,

168:Instinct teaches us to look for happiness outside ourselves. ~ Blaise Pascal,

169:No one dies so poor that he does not leave something behind. ~ Blaise Pascal,

170:Nothing is so defective as those laws which correct defects. ~ Blaise Pascal,

171:Something incomprehensible is not for that reason less real. ~ Blaise Pascal,

172:Atheism shows strength of mind, but only to a certain degree. ~ Blaise Pascal,

173:To go beyond the bounds of moderation is to outrage humanity. ~ Blaise Pascal,

174:We know truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart. ~ Blaise Pascal,

175:A little thing comforts us because a little thing afflicts us. ~ Blaise Pascal,

176:If there were only one religion, God would indeed be manifest. ~ Blaise Pascal,

177:If you want others to have a good opinion of you, say nothing. ~ Blaise Pascal,

178:It is an appalling thing to feel all one possesses drain away. ~ Blaise Pascal,

179:It is impossible on reasonable grounds to disbelieve miracles. ~ Blaise Pascal,

180:Nothing is more dastardly than to act with bravado toward God. ~ Blaise Pascal,

181:Rivers are roads that move and carry us whither we wish to go. ~ Blaise Pascal,

182:There is nothing so conformable to reason as to disavow reason ~ Blaise Pascal,

183:All that is made perfect by progress perishes also by progress. ~ Blaise Pascal,

184:Description of man: dependence, longing for independence, need. ~ Blaise Pascal,

185:Faith embraces many truths which seem to contradict each other. ~ Blaise Pascal,

186:Nature confuses the skeptics and reason confutes the dogmatists ~ Blaise Pascal,

187:Nous sommes de bien petites mécaniques égarées par les infinis. ~ Blaise Pascal,

188:Perfect clarity would profit the intellect but damage the will. ~ Blaise Pascal,

189:Si no actúas como piensas, vas a terminar pensando como actúas. ~ Blaise Pascal,

190:There are three sources of belief: reason, custom, inspiration. ~ Blaise Pascal,

191:Inima îşi are propriile raţiuni pe care raţiunea nu le cunoaşte| ~ Blaise Pascal,

192:Man lives between the infinitely large and the infinitely small. ~ Blaise Pascal,

193:The last thing we decide in writing a book is what to put first. ~ Blaise Pascal,

194:The married should not forget that to speak of love begets love. ~ Blaise Pascal,

195:There are three sources of belief: reason, custom, inspiration. ~ Blaise Pascal,

196:De eeuwige stilte van deze eindeloze ruimte vervult me met angst. ~ Blaise Pascal,

197:If we ought to give up a week we ought to give up our whole life. ~ Blaise Pascal,

198:Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true. ~ Blaise Pascal,

199:Orthodoxy on one side of the Pyrenees may be heresy on the other. ~ Blaise Pascal,

200:The eternal silence of these infinite places fills me with dread. ~ Blaise Pascal,

201:The eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills me with dread. ~ Blaise Pascal,

202:The multitude which does not reduce itself to unity is confusion. ~ Blaise Pascal,

203:We know the truth, not only be the reason, but also be the heart. ~ Blaise Pascal,

204:Law was once introduced without reason, and has become reasonable. ~ Blaise Pascal,

205:Losses are comparative; imagination only makes them of any moment. ~ Blaise Pascal,

206:Sceptic, mathematician, Christian; doubt, affirmation, submission. ~ Blaise Pascal,

207:That a religion may be true, it must have knowledge of our nature. ~ Blaise Pascal,

208:The last thing one knows when writing a book is what to put first. ~ Blaise Pascal,

209:There would be too great darkness, if truth had not visible signs. ~ Blaise Pascal,

210:they do not know that they seek only the chase and not the quarry. ~ Blaise Pascal,

211:I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time. ~ Blaise Pascal,

212:Philosophers.-We are full of things which take us out of ourselves. ~ Blaise Pascal,

213:Rivers are highways that move on and bear us whither we wish to go. ~ Blaise Pascal,

214:What a vast difference there is between knowing God and loving Him. ~ Blaise Pascal,

215:What reason for vanity in being plunged into impenetrable darkness? ~ Blaise Pascal,

216:Everything that is written merely to please the author is worthless. ~ Blaise Pascal,

217:It is man's natural sickness to believe that he possesses the Truth. ~ Blaise Pascal,

218:It is man's natural sickness to believe that he possesses the truth. ~ Blaise Pascal,

219:It is not good to be too free. It is not good to have all one wants. ~ Blaise Pascal,

220:Man is but a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed. ~ Blaise Pascal,

221:Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true.    ~ Blaise Pascal,

222:Our reason is always disappointed by the inconstancy of appearances. ~ Blaise Pascal,

223:The motions of Grace, the hardness of heart; external circumstances. ~ Blaise Pascal,

224:There is nothing so consistent with reason as this denial of reason. ~ Blaise Pascal,

225:The world is ruled by force, not by opinion; but opinion uses force. ~ Blaise Pascal,

226:Those honor nature well, who teach that she can speak on everything. ~ Blaise Pascal,

227:To call a king "Prince" is pleasing, because it diminishes his rank. ~ Blaise Pascal,

228:Any unity which doesn't have its origin in the multitudes is tyranny. ~ Blaise Pascal,

229:Having been unable to strengthen justice, we have justified strength. ~ Blaise Pascal,

230:The world is satisfied with words. Few appreciate the things beneath. ~ Blaise Pascal,

231:they do not know that they seek only the chase and not the quarry. ~ Blaise Pascal,

232:Unable to make what is just strong, we have made what is strong just. ~ Blaise Pascal,

233:We are never in search of things, but always in search of the search. ~ Blaise Pascal,

234:All evil stems from this-that we do. Know how to handle your solitude. ~ Blaise Pascal,

235:All man's troubles come from not knowing how to sit still in one room. ~ Blaise Pascal,

236:Do you wish people to think well of you? Don't speak well of yourself. ~ Blaise Pascal,

237:Each one is all in all to himself; for being dead, all is dead to him. ~ Blaise Pascal,

238:Everything that is incomprehensible does not, however, cease to exist. ~ Blaise Pascal,

239:The heart has arguments with which the logic of mind is not aquainted. ~ Blaise Pascal,

240:The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what to put first. ~ Blaise Pascal,

241:Those honor nature well, who teach that she can speak on everything... ~ Blaise Pascal,

242:all of man's problems come from the inability to sit quietly in a room. ~ Blaise Pascal,

243:De verbeelding kan dwazen niets wijs maken, maar ze maakt hen gelukkig. ~ Blaise Pascal,

244:It is man's natural sickness to believe that he possesses the truth.    ~ Blaise Pascal,

245:Jesus Christ came to tell men that they have no enemies but themselves. ~ Blaise Pascal,

246:Meanings receive their dignity from words instead of giving it to them. ~ Blaise Pascal,

247:Wisdom leads us back to childhood. Except ye become as little children. ~ Blaise Pascal,

248:El hombre tiene ilusiones como el pájaro alas. Eso es lo que lo sostiene ~ Blaise Pascal,

249:Justice without force is powerless; force without justice is tyrannical. ~ Blaise Pascal,

250:Opinion is, as it were, the queen of the world, but force is its tyrant. ~ Blaise Pascal,

251:Please forgive the long letter; I didn’t have time to write a short one. ~ Blaise Pascal,

252:Rivers are roads which move, and which carry us whither we desire to go. ~ Blaise Pascal,

253:The end point of rationality is to demonstrate the limits of rationality ~ Blaise Pascal,

254:The world is satisfied with words, few care to dive beneath the surface. ~ Blaise Pascal,

255:[167] Submission and use of reason; that is what makes true Christianity. ~ Blaise Pascal,

256:It is not in Montaigne, but in myself, that I find all that I see in him. ~ Blaise Pascal,

257:The end point of rationality is to demonstrate the limits of rationality. ~ Blaise Pascal,

258:The last thing we discover in composing a work is what to put down first. ~ Blaise Pascal,

259:Dans une grande a" me tout est grand. In a great soul everything isgreat. ~ Blaise Pascal,

260:He who does not know his way to the sea should take a river for his guide. ~ Blaise Pascal,

261:If man studied himself, he would see how incapable he is of going further. ~ Blaise Pascal,

262:Reason's last step is to acknowledge that there are infinitely many things ~ Blaise Pascal,

263:[128] Two things teach man about his whole nature: instinct and experience. ~ Blaise Pascal,

264:All human unhappiness comes from not knowing how to stay quietly in a room. ~ Blaise Pascal,

265:All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone. ~ Blaise Pascal,

266:All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit quiet in a room alone. ~ Blaise Pascal,

267:All the good maxims which are in the world fail when applied to one's self. ~ Blaise Pascal,

268:Do you wish people to speak well of you? Then do not speak at all yourself. ~ Blaise Pascal,

269:God instituted prayer to communicate to creatures the dignity of causality. ~ Blaise Pascal,

270:Let us then strive to think well; that is basic principle of morality. (54) ~ Blaise Pascal,

271:No soul of high estate can take pleasure in slander. It betrays a weakness. ~ Blaise Pascal,

272:The more intelligent a man is, the more originality he discovers in others. ~ Blaise Pascal,

273:There are plenty of maxims in the world; all that remains is to apply them. ~ Blaise Pascal,

274:All the maxims have been written. It only remains to put them into practice. ~ Blaise Pascal,

275:It is not possible to have reasonable grounds for not believing in miracles. ~ Blaise Pascal,

276:Rivers are roads which move, [8] and which carry us whither we desire to go. ~ Blaise Pascal,

277:The law required what it could not give. Grace gives that which it requires. ~ Blaise Pascal,

278:We never do evil so fully and cheerfully as when we do it out of conscience. ~ Blaise Pascal,

279:[82] Wisdom leads us back to childhood. Except ye become as little children.1 ~ Blaise Pascal,

280:All man's miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone. ~ Blaise Pascal,

281:All sorrow has its root in man's inability to sit quiet in a room by himself. ~ Blaise Pascal,

282:Don't try to add more years to your life. Better add more life to your years. ~ Blaise Pascal,

283:Force rules the world-not opinion; but it is opinion that makes use of force. ~ Blaise Pascal,

284:Le dernier acte est sanglant, quelque belle soit la comédie en tout le reste. ~ Blaise Pascal,

285:Our achievements of today are but the sum total of our thoughts of yesterday. ~ Blaise Pascal,

286:All human troubles derive from our inability to sit still and alone in a room. ~ Blaise Pascal,

287:Custom creates the whole of equity, for the simple reason that it is accepted. ~ Blaise Pascal,

288:Imagination is the deceptive part in man, the mistress of error and falsehood. ~ Blaise Pascal,

289:Instability.—It is a horrible thing to feel all that we possess slipping away. ~ Blaise Pascal,

290:Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed. ~ Blaise Pascal,

291:Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed. ~ Blaise Pascal,

292:Reason never wholly overcomes imagination, while the contrary is quite common. ~ Blaise Pascal,

293:We must learn our limits. We are all something, but none of us are everything. ~ Blaise Pascal,

294:What amazes me most is to see that everyone is not amazed at his own weakness. ~ Blaise Pascal,

295:It is better to know something about everything then everything about something ~ Blaise Pascal,

296:Most of the evils of life arise from man's being unable to sit still in a room. ~ Blaise Pascal,

297:Our own interests are still an exquisite means for dazzling our eyes agreeably. ~ Blaise Pascal,

298:The last thing that we find in making a book is to know what we must put first. ~ Blaise Pascal,

299:You corrupt religion either in favour of your friends, or against your enemies. ~ Blaise Pascal,

300:It is not permitted to the most equitable of men to be a judge in his own cause. ~ Blaise Pascal,

301:Man is so made that if he is told often enough that he is a fool he believes it. ~ Blaise Pascal,

302:Seeing too much to deny and too little to be sure, I am in a state to be pitied. ~ Blaise Pascal,

303:Silence is the greatest persecution; never do the saints keep themselves silent. ~ Blaise Pascal,

304:Small minds are concerned with the extraordinary, great minds with the ordinary. ~ Blaise Pascal,

305:The right way is to want what God wants. Christ alone leads to it. Via Veritas.1 ~ Blaise Pascal,

306:True eloquence makes light of eloquence. True morality makes light of morality. ~ Blaise Pascal,

307:we would willingly be cowards in order to acquire the reputation of being brave. ~ Blaise Pascal,

308:All human evil comes from a single cause, man's inability to sit still in a room. ~ Blaise Pascal,

309:All human evil comes from a single cause, man’s inability to sit still in a room. ~ Blaise Pascal,

310:All the miseries of mankind come from one thing, not knowing how to remain alone. ~ Blaise Pascal,

311:Flies are so mighty that they win battles, paralyse our minds, eat up our bodies. ~ Blaise Pascal,

312:However vast a man's spiritual resources, he is capable of but one great passion. ~ Blaise Pascal,

313:The sum of a man's problems come from his inability to be alone in a silent room. ~ Blaise Pascal,

314:The supreme function of reason is to show man that some things are beyond reason. ~ Blaise Pascal,

315:To deny, to believe, and to doubt well, are to a man what the race is to a horse. ~ Blaise Pascal,

316:You're basically killing each other to see who's got the better imaginary friend. ~ Blaise Pascal,

317:All this visible world is but an imperceptible point in the ample bosom of nature. ~ Blaise Pascal,

318:Faith is different from proof; the latter is human, the former is a Gift from God. ~ Blaise Pascal,

319:Few men speak humbly of humility, chastely of chastity, skeptically of skepticism. ~ Blaise Pascal,

320:For nature is an image of Grace, and visible miracles are images of the invisible. ~ Blaise Pascal,

321:It is not good to be too free. It is not good to have all one needs. (Page 11) ~ Blaise Pascal,

322:Jurisdiction is not given for the sake of the judge, but for that of the litigant. ~ Blaise Pascal,

323:When we are in love we seem to ourselves quite different from what we were before. ~ Blaise Pascal,

324:[186] You abuse the trust people have in the Church and make them believe anything. ~ Blaise Pascal,

325:All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone ~ Blaise Pascal,

326:Small minds are concerned with the extraordinary, great minds with the ordinary.    ~ Blaise Pascal,

327:Vanity is illustrated in the cause and effect of love, as in the case of Cleopatra. ~ Blaise Pascal,

328:We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end. ~ Blaise Pascal,

329:All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.    ~ Blaise Pascal, [T5],

330:All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone. ~ Blaise Pascal,

331:All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone. ~ Blaise Pascal,

332:All the trouble in the world is due to the fact that man cannot sit still in a room. ~ Blaise Pascal,

333:Earthly things must be known to be loved; heavenly things must be loved to be known. ~ Blaise Pascal,

334:Ecclesiastes shows that man without God is in total ignorance and inevitable misery. ~ Blaise Pascal,

335:Human beings must be known to be loved; but Divine beings must be loved to be known. ~ Blaise Pascal,

336:If a soldier or labourer complain of the hardship of his lot, set him to do nothing. ~ Blaise Pascal,

337:İnsanoğlunun tüm mutsuzluğu tek başına sessizce bir odada oturamamaktan kaynaklanır. ~ Blaise Pascal,

338:'Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, and walk therein.' ~ Blaise Pascal,

339:Passion cannot be beautiful without excess; one either loves too much or not enough. ~ Blaise Pascal,

340:Ecclesiastes shows that man without God is in total ignorance and inevitable misery. ~ Blaise Pascal,

341:Faith is different from proof; the latter is human, the former is a Gift from God.    ~ Blaise Pascal,

342:It is not our task to secure the triumph of truth, but merely to fight on its behalf. ~ Blaise Pascal,

343:Men are so inevitably mad that not to be mad would be to give a mad twist to madness. ~ Blaise Pascal,

344:Men spend their time in following a ball or a hare; it is the pleasure even of kings. ~ Blaise Pascal,

345:Omul este asa de mare, încât maretia lui reiese si din aceea ca el se stie nenorocit. ~ Blaise Pascal,

346:Silence. All human unhappiness comes from not knowing how to stay quietly in a room. ~ Blaise Pascal,

347:[22] Flies are so mighty that they win battles, paralyse our minds, eat up our bodies. ~ Blaise Pascal,

348:All of our miseries prove our greatness. They are the miseries of a dethroned monarch. ~ Blaise Pascal,

349:All that tends not to charity is figurative. The sole aim of the Scripture is charity. ~ Blaise Pascal,

350:Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth. ~ Blaise Pascal,

351:Education produces natural intuitions, and natural intuitions are erased by education. ~ Blaise Pascal,

352:Evil is never done so thoroughly or so well as when it is done with a good conscience. ~ Blaise Pascal,

353:Excuse me, pray." Without that excuse I would not have known there was anything amiss. ~ Blaise Pascal,

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

355:Once your soul has been enlarged by a truth, it can never return to its original size. ~ Blaise Pascal,

356:Voluptuousness, like justice, is blind, but that is the only resemblance between them. ~ Blaise Pascal,

357:Discourses on humility are a source of pride in the vain and of humility in the humble. ~ Blaise Pascal,

358:Force and not opinion is the queen of the world; but it is opinion that uses the force. ~ Blaise Pascal,

359:Fuller believed human societies would soon rely mainly on renewable sources of energy, ~ Blaise Pascal,

360:Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness. ~ Blaise Pascal,

361:The two foundations; one inward, the other outward; grace, miracles; both supernatural. ~ Blaise Pascal,

362:Amusement that is excessive and followed only for its own sake, allures and deceives us. ~ Blaise Pascal,

363:Chance gives rise to thoughts, and chance removes them; no art can keep or acquire them. ~ Blaise Pascal,

364:Che non si dica che non ho detto niente di nuovo: la disposizione delle materie è nuova. ~ Blaise Pascal,

365:Death is easier to bear without thinking of it, than the thought of death without peril. ~ Blaise Pascal,

366:Let it not be said that I have said nothing new. The arrangement of the material is new. ~ Blaise Pascal,

367:Mankind suffers from two excesses: to exclude reason, and to live by nothing but reason. ~ Blaise Pascal,

368:Man’s greatness come from knowing he wretched: a tree does not know it is wretched. (21) ~ Blaise Pascal,

369:There are two equally dangerous extremes-to shut reason out, and to let nothing else in. ~ Blaise Pascal,

370:Faith is a sounder guide than reason. Reason can only go so far, but faith has no limits. ~ Blaise Pascal,

371:Happiness is neither within us, nor without us. It is in the union of ourselves with God. ~ Blaise Pascal,

372:Happiness is neither within us only, or without us; it is the union of ourselves with God ~ Blaise Pascal,

373:Men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when they do it for religious convictions. ~ Blaise Pascal,

374:The tone of voice influences the wisest of us and alters the force of a speech or a poem. ~ Blaise Pascal,

375:Why God has instituted Prayer:— To communicate to his creatures the dignity of causation. ~ Blaise Pascal,

376:Few friendships would survive if each one knew what his friend says of him behind his back ~ Blaise Pascal,

377:Happiness is neither within us only, or without us; it is the union of ourselves with God. ~ Blaise Pascal,

378:It is not shameful for a man to succumb to pain and it is shameful to succumb to pleasure. ~ Blaise Pascal,

379:Not only do we know God through Jesus Christ, we only know ourselves through Jesus Christ. ~ Blaise Pascal,

380:The present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter. ~ Blaise Pascal,

381:Ultimul lucru pe care-l aflăm când alcătuim o lucrare este cu ce ar fi trebuit să începem. ~ Blaise Pascal,

382:What astonishes us most is to observe that everyone is not astonished at his own weakness. ~ Blaise Pascal,

383:Between us and heaven or hell there is only life, which is the frailest thing in the world. ~ Blaise Pascal,

384:Cleopatra's nose, had it been shorter, the whole face of the world would have been changed. ~ Blaise Pascal,

385:Few friendships would survive if each one knew what his friend says of him behind his back. ~ Blaise Pascal,

386:God has given us evidence sufficiently clear to convince those with an open heart and mind. ~ Blaise Pascal,

387:If we examine our thoughts, we shall find them always occupied with the past or the future. ~ Blaise Pascal,

388:Nature is an infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. ~ Blaise Pascal,

389:The sole case of man's unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room ~ Blaise Pascal,

390:The weather and my mood have little connection. I have my foggy and my fine days within me. ~ Blaise Pascal,

391:Thinking too little about things or thinking too much both make us obstinate and fanatical. ~ Blaise Pascal,

392:We must keep our thought secret, and judge everything by it, while talking like the people. ~ Blaise Pascal,

393:We must make good people wish that the Christian faith were true, and then show that it is. ~ Blaise Pascal,

394:All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone." — Blaise Pascal ~ Kevin Horsley,

395:Do you want it always to cost me the blood of my humanity while you do not even shed a tear? ~ Blaise Pascal,

396:If man should commence by studying himself, he would see how impossible it is to go further. ~ Blaise Pascal,

397:If we examine our thoughts, we shall find them always occupied with the past and the future. ~ Blaise Pascal,

398:Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. ~ Blaise Pascal,

399:Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it with religious conviction. ~ Blaise Pascal,

400:Nie betrieben die Menschen das Böse so umfassend und freudig wie aus religiöser Überzeugung. ~ Blaise Pascal,

401:Now, if the passions had no hold on us, a week and a hundred years would amount to the same. ~ Blaise Pascal,

402:Reason is the slow and torturous method by which those who do not know the truth discover it ~ Blaise Pascal,

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

404:The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble. ~ Blaise Pascal,

405:The sole cause of all human misery is the inability of people to sit quietly in their rooms. ~ Blaise Pascal,

406:The sweetness of glory is so great that, join it to what we will, even to death, we love it. ~ Blaise Pascal,

407:[123] Contradictions. Contempt for our existence, dying for nothing, hatred of our existence. ~ Blaise Pascal,

408:Man is neither angel nor beast, and unhappily whoever wants to act the angel, acts the beast. ~ Blaise Pascal,

409:Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere. ~ Blaise Pascal,

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

411:The sole cause of man's unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room. ~ Blaise Pascal,

412:The sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room. ~ Blaise Pascal,

413:The strength of a man's virtue must not be measured by his efforts, but by his ordinary life. ~ Blaise Pascal,

414:We run heedlessly into the abyss after putting something in front of us to stop us seeing it. ~ Blaise Pascal,

415:When a soldier complains of his hard life (or a labourer, etc.) try giving him nothing to do. ~ Blaise Pascal,

416:All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone. ~ Blaise Pascal, Pensées,

417:Curiosity is only vanity. We usually only want to know something so that we can talk about it. ~ Blaise Pascal,

418:If man were happy, he would be the more so, the less he was diverted, like the saints and God. ~ Blaise Pascal,

419:Mais Dieu, en imposant, avertit de faire ce qu’on peut, et de demander ce qu’on ne peut pas. » ~ Blaise Pascal,

420:Thinking too little about things or thinking too much both make us obstinate and fanatical. If ~ Blaise Pascal,

421:This religion taught its children what men had managed to know only at their most enlightened. ~ Blaise Pascal,

422:All mankind's troubles are caused by one single thing, which is their inability to sit quietly. ~ Blaise Pascal,

423:Christian piety annihilates the egoism of the heart; worldly politeness veils and represses it. ~ Blaise Pascal,

424:It is superstitious to put one's hope in formalities, but arrogant to refuse to submit to them. ~ Blaise Pascal,

425:Too much and too little wine. Give him none, he cannot find truth; give him too much, the same. ~ Blaise Pascal,

426:We never do evil so effectually as when we are led to do it by a false principle of conscience. ~ Blaise Pascal,

427:Apart from Jesus Christ, we do not know what is our life, nor our death, nor God, nor ourselves. ~ Blaise Pascal,

428:It is superstitious to put one's hopes in formalities, but arrogant to refuse to submit to them. ~ Blaise Pascal,

429:The captain of a ship is not chosen from those of the passengers who comes from the best family. ~ Blaise Pascal,

430:Two faces are alike; neither is funny by itself, but side by side their likeness makes us laugh. ~ Blaise Pascal,

431:A man does not show his greatness by being at one extremity, but rather by touching both at once. ~ Blaise Pascal,

432:Amusement allures and deceives us and leads us down imperceptibly in thoughtlessness to the grave ~ Blaise Pascal,

433:Curiosity is nothing more than vanity. More often than not we only seek knowledge to show it off. ~ Blaise Pascal,

434:Two infinites. Mean. When we read too quickly or too slowly we do not understand anything. ~ Blaise Pascal,

435:Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte. ~ Blaise Pascal,

436:Not the zeal alone of those who seek Him proves God, but the blindness of those who seek Him not. ~ Blaise Pascal,

437:71 Too much and too little wine. Give him none, he cannot find truth; give him too much, the same. ~ Blaise Pascal,

438:All of human unhappiness comes from one single thing: not knowing how to remain at rest in a room. ~ Blaise Pascal,

439:Blaise Pascal said, “All man’s miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone. ~ Kevin Horsley,

440:It is incomprehensible that God should exist, and it is incomprehensible that he should not exist. ~ Blaise Pascal,

441:Symmetry is what we see at a glance; based on the fact that there is no reason for any difference. ~ Blaise Pascal,

442:The last function of reason is to recognize that there are an infinity of things which surpass it. ~ Blaise Pascal,

443:We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put something before us to prevent us seeing it. ~ Blaise Pascal,

444:We run heedlessly into the abyss after putting something in front of us to stop us from seeing it. ~ Blaise Pascal,

445:What a chimera then is man. What a novelty! What a monster... what a contradiction, what a prodigy ~ Blaise Pascal,

446:All I know is that I must soon die, but what I know least is this very death which I cannot escape. ~ Blaise Pascal,

447:An advocate who has been well paid in advance will find the cause he is pleading all the more just. ~ Blaise Pascal,

448:At the centre of every human being is a God-shaped vacuum which can only be filled by Jesus Christ. ~ Blaise Pascal,

449:I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter. ~ Blaise Pascal,

450:Must we kill to prevent there being any wicked? This is to make both parties wicked instead of one. ~ Blaise Pascal,

451:That we must love one God only is a thing so evident that it does not require miracles to prove it. ~ Blaise Pascal,

452:There is no arena in which vanity displays itself under such a variety of forms as in conversation. ~ Blaise Pascal,

453:It is not only old and early impressions that deceive us; the charms of novelty have the same power. ~ Blaise Pascal,

454:Justice and truth are two such subtle points, that our tools are too blunt to touch them accurately. ~ Blaise Pascal,

455:Nature has made all her truths independent of one another. Our art makes one dependent on the other. ~ Blaise Pascal,

456:quod quum naturae et legi impossibile est, possibile facit, immo et præstat gratia Dei per Christum. ~ Blaise Pascal,

457:Symmetry is what we see at a glance; based on the fact that there is no reason for any difference... ~ Blaise Pascal,

458:Thought makes the whole dignity of man; therefore endeavor to think well, that is the only morality. ~ Blaise Pascal,

459:[152] Between us and heaven or hell there is only life half-way, the most fragile thing in the world. ~ Blaise Pascal,

460:[70] If our condition were truly happy we should not need to divert ourselves from thinking about it. ~ Blaise Pascal,

461:By space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an atom; by thought I comprehend the world. ~ Blaise Pascal,

462:If our condition were truly happy we should not need to divert ourselves from thinking about it. (12) ~ Blaise Pascal,

463:Is it courage in a dying man to go, in weakness and in agony, to affront an almighty and eternal God? ~ Blaise Pascal,

464:[On vanity:] The nose of Cleopatra: if it had been shorter, the face of the earth would have changed. ~ Blaise Pascal,

465:The power of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special efforts, but by his ordinary doing. ~ Blaise Pascal,

466:Blaise Pascal, who said, “All man’s troubles derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone. ~ Wayne W Dyer,

467:Christianity is strange: it requires human beings to recognize that they are vile and even abominable. ~ Blaise Pascal,

468:Eloquence; it requires the pleasant and the real; but the pleasant must itself be drawn from the true. ~ Blaise Pascal,

469:Les misères de tous les hommes tirent de ne pas être en mesure de s'asseoir dans une pièce calme seul. ~ Blaise Pascal,

470:Reason's last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it. ~ Blaise Pascal,

471:Reason’s last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it. ~ Blaise Pascal,

472:Those who have known God without knowing their own wretchedness have not glorified him but themselves. ~ Blaise Pascal,

473:Condition de l'homme: inconstance, ennui, inquie tude. Man's condition. Inconstancy, boredom, anxiety. ~ Blaise Pascal,

474:les manichéens étoient les luthériens de leur temps, comme les luthériens sont les manichéens du nôtre. ~ Blaise Pascal,

475:The weakness of human reason appears more evidently in those who know it not than in those who know it. ~ Blaise Pascal,

476:We are only falsehood, duplicity, contradiction; we both conceal and disguise ourselves from ourselves. ~ Blaise Pascal,

477:We run carelessly over the precipice after having put something in front of us to prevent us seeing it. ~ Blaise Pascal,

478:What a strange vanity painting is; it attracts admiration by resembling the original, we do not admire. ~ Blaise Pascal,

479:By space the universe encompasses me and swallows me up like an atom; by thought I comprehend the world. ~ Blaise Pascal,

480:God wishes to move the will rather than the mind. Perfect clarity would help the mind and harm the will. ~ Blaise Pascal,

481:If our condition were truly happy, we would not seek diversion from it in order to make ourselves happy. ~ Blaise Pascal,

482:There is some pleasure in being on board a ship battered by storms when one is certain of not perishing. ~ Blaise Pascal,

483:The whole title by which you possess your property, is not a title of nature but of a human institution. ~ Blaise Pascal,

484:All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone,’ wrote Blaise Pascal. ~ Rolf Dobelli,

485:All the troubles of life come upon us because we refuse to sit quietly for a while each day in our rooms. ~ Blaise Pascal,

486:In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't. ~ Blaise Pascal,

487:It is right that what is just should be obeyed. It is necessary that what is strongest should be obeyed. ~ Blaise Pascal,

488:One must have deeper motives and judge everything accordingly, but go on talking like an ordinary person. ~ Blaise Pascal,

489:Since we cannot know all there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything. ~ Blaise Pascal,

490:The Fall is an offense to human reason, but once accepted, it makes perfect sense of the human condition. ~ Blaise Pascal,

491:The strength of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts. ~ Blaise Pascal,

492:The truth about nature we discover with our brains. The truth about religion we discover with our hearts. ~ Blaise Pascal,

493:He who cannot believe is cursed, for he reveals by his unbelief that God has not chosen to give him grace. ~ Blaise Pascal,

494:If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists. ~ Blaise Pascal,

495:If you gain, you gain all. If you lose, you lose nothing. Wager then, without hesitation, that He exsists. ~ Blaise Pascal,

496:it is so inevitable that men will be fools that it is only by another shift of folly that one might not be ~ Blaise Pascal,

497:Jesus is a God whom we can approach without pride and before whom we can humble ourselves without despair. ~ Blaise Pascal,

498:Plurality which is not reduced to unity is confusion; unity which does not depend on plurality is tyranny. ~ Blaise Pascal,

499:Some vices only lay hold of us by means of others, and these, like branches, fall on removal of the trunk. ~ Blaise Pascal,

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

501:Those whom we call ancient were really new in all things, and properly constituted the infancy of mankind. ~ Blaise Pascal,

502:Truth is not an object to be possessed; it is a living thing recognized, cultivated by the mind and heart. ~ Blaise Pascal,

503:We view things not only from different sides, but with different eyes; we have no wish to find them alike. ~ Blaise Pascal,

504:All the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber. ~ Blaise Pascal,

505:Do little things as if they were great, because of the majesty of the Lord Jesus Christ who dwells in thee. ~ Blaise Pascal,

506:I maintain that, if everyone knew what others said about him, there would not be four friends in the world. ~ Blaise Pascal,

507:It's not those who write the laws that have the greatest impact on society. It's those who write the songs. ~ Blaise Pascal,

508:Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. Blaise Pascal ~ Jonathan Sacks,

509:Seventeenth-century philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote: “The eternal silence of the infinite spaces terrifies me. ~ Peter Enns,

510:Through space the universe grasps me and swallows me up like a speck; through thought I grasp it. (Page 21) ~ Blaise Pascal,

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

512:All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone,’ wrote Blaise Pascal. At ~ Rolf Dobelli,

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

514:Jesus Christ is the god whom we approach without pride, and before whom we humble ourselves without despair. ~ Blaise Pascal,

515:Jesus is the God whom we can approach without pride and before whom we can humble ourselves without despair. ~ Blaise Pascal,

516:Man is neither angel nor brute, and the unfortunate thing is that he who would act the angel acts the brute. ~ Blaise Pascal,

517:Man's sensitivity to little things and insensitivity to the greatest things are marks of a strange disorder. ~ Blaise Pascal,

518:Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it with religious conviction.” -Blaise Pascal ~ Angela Roquet,

519:Our intellect holds the same position in the world of thought as our body occupies in the expanse of nature. ~ Blaise Pascal,

520:The great mass of people judge well of things, for they are in natural ignorance, which is man's true state. ~ Blaise Pascal,

521:Those are weaklings who know the truth and uphold it as long as it suits their purpose, and then abandon it. ~ Blaise Pascal,

522:Alergăm fără încetare spre prăpastie după ce am aşezat ceva în faţa noastră pentru a ne împiedica să o vedem. ~ Blaise Pascal,

523:If man is not made for God, why is he only happy in God? If man is made for God, why is he so opposed to God? ~ Blaise Pascal,

524:If our state were really happy, we should not need to take our minds off it in order to make ourselves happy. ~ Blaise Pascal,

525:Man's sensitivity to the little things and insensitivity to the greatest are the signs of a strange disorder. ~ Blaise Pascal,

526:that the closed mem6 signified 600 years. But the time was foretold clearly, while the manner was figurative. ~ Blaise Pascal,

527:The sensitivity of men to small matters, and their indifference to great ones, indicates a strange inversion. ~ Blaise Pascal,

528:Words differently arranged have different meanings, and meanings differently arranged have different effects. ~ Blaise Pascal,

529:Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for miseries and yet it is itself the greatest of our miseries. ~ Blaise Pascal,

530:How vain is painting, which is admired for reproducing the likeness of things whose originals are not admired. ~ Blaise Pascal,

531:Since we cannot know all that there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything. ~ Blaise Pascal,

532:Those who are clever in imagination are far more pleased with themselves than prudent men could reasonably be. ~ Blaise Pascal,

533:Words differently arranged have a different meaning, and meanings differently arranged have different effects. ~ Blaise Pascal,

534:Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for our miseries. Yet it is itself the greatest of our miseries. ~ Blaise Pascal,

535:How vain painting is, exciting admiration by its resemblance to things of which we do not admire the originals. ~ Blaise Pascal,

536:If man was not made for God, why is he only happy in God? If man was made for God, why is he so opposed to God? ~ Blaise Pascal,

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

538:The serene, silent beauty of a holy life is the most powerful influence in the world, next to the night of God. ~ Blaise Pascal,

539:We are generally the better persuaded by the reasons we discover ourselves than by those given to us by others. ~ Blaise Pascal,

540:Beauty is a harmonious relation between something in our nature and the quality of the object which delights us. ~ Blaise Pascal,

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

542:I rather live as if God exists to find out that He doesn't than live as if he doesn't exist to find out He does. ~ Blaise Pascal,

543:Jesus Christ and St Paul possess the order of charity, not of the mind, for they wished to humble, not to teach. ~ Blaise Pascal,

544:Men seek rest in a struggle against difficulties; and when they have conquered these, rest becomes insufferable. ~ Blaise Pascal,

545:The Church limits her sacramental services to the faithful. Christ gave Himself upon the cross a ransom for all. ~ Blaise Pascal,

546:There is enough light for those who desire only to see, and enough darkness for those of a contrary disposition. ~ Blaise Pascal,

547:Tout le malheur des hommes vient d’une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos dans une chambre. ~ Blaise Pascal,

548:We never live, but we hope to live; and as we are always arranging to be happy, it must be that we never are so. ~ Blaise Pascal,

549:Between us, and Hell or Heaven, there is only life between the two, which is the most fragile thing in the world. ~ Blaise Pascal,

550:Happiness can be found neither in ourselves nor in external things, but in God and in ourselves as united to him. ~ Blaise Pascal,

551:He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God's providence to lead him aright. ~ Blaise Pascal,

552:Le silence eternel des ces espaces infinis m'effraie - The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me. ~ Blaise Pascal,

553:Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre. ~ Blaise Pascal,

554:Justice is subject to dispute; might is easily recognized and is not disputed. So we cannot give might to justice. ~ Blaise Pascal,

555:Man is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness from which he emerges and the infinity in which he is engulfed. ~ Blaise Pascal,

556:Pride counterbalances all these miseries; man either hides or displays them, and glories in his awareness of them. ~ Blaise Pascal,

557:We implore the mercy of God, not that He may leave us at peace in our vices, but that He may deliver us from them. ~ Blaise Pascal,

558:When we see a natural style, we are astonished and delighted; for we expected to see an author, and we find a man. ~ Blaise Pascal,

559:Fascinatio nugacitatis - Pentru ca patima să nu ne vatăme, să trăim ca şi cum n-am avea decât opt zile de trăit. ~ Blaise Pascal,

560:How shall one who is so weak in his childhood become really strong when he grows older? We only change our fancies. ~ Blaise Pascal,

561: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

562: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

563:When we see a natural style, we are astonished and charmed; for we expected to see an author, and we find a person. ~ Blaise Pascal,

564:[38] Too much and too little wine. Do not give him any, he cannot find the truth. Give him too much; the same thing. ~ Blaise Pascal,

565:If our condition were truly happy, we would not need diversion from thinking of it in order to make ourselves happy. ~ Blaise Pascal,

566:I have often said that the sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room. ~ Blaise Pascal,

567:Instead of complaining that God had hidden himself, you will give Him thanks for having revealed so much of Himself. ~ Blaise Pascal,

568:Man is neither angel nor beast, and it is unfortunately the case that anyone trying to act the angel acts the beast. ~ Blaise Pascal,

569:The imagination disposes of everything. It creates beauty, justice, and happiness, which are the whole of the world. ~ Blaise Pascal,

570:The more intelligence one has, the more people one finds original. Commonplace people see no difference between men. ~ Blaise Pascal,

571:Thought constitutes the greatness of man. Man is a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed. ~ Blaise Pascal,

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

573:We are usually convinced more easily by reasons we have found ourselves than by those which have occurred to others. ~ Blaise Pascal,

574:We show greatness, not by being at one extreme, but by touching both at once and occupying all the space in between. ~ Blaise Pascal,

575:If we regulate our conduct according to our own convictions, we may safely disregard the praise or censure of others. ~ Blaise Pascal,

576:Nothing fortifies scepticism more than that there are some who are not sceptics; if all were so, they would be wrong. ~ Blaise Pascal,

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

578:Two similar faces, neither of which alone causes laughter, use laughter when they are together, by their resemblance. ~ Blaise Pascal,

579:When we come across a natural style, we are surprised and delighted; for we expected an author, and we find a man. ~ Blaise Pascal,

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

581:Faith certainly tells us what the senses do not, but not the contrary of what they see; it is above, not against them. ~ Blaise Pascal,

582:Nature has some perfections to show that she is the image of God, and some defects to show that she is only His image. ~ Blaise Pascal,

583:The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men. ~ Blaise Pascal,

584:The last act is bloody, however fine the rest of the play. They throw earth over your head and it is finished forever. ~ Blaise Pascal,

585:There is enough light for those who only desire to see, and enough obscurity for those who have a contrary disposition ~ Blaise Pascal,

586:[T]he sovereignty of reason and justice is no more tyrannical than that of desire. They are principles natural to man. ~ Blaise Pascal,

587:Extremes are for us as if they were not, and as if we were not in regard to them; they escape from us, or we from them. ~ Blaise Pascal,

588:How vain painting is-we admire the realistic depiction of objects which in their original state we don't admire at all. ~ Blaise Pascal,

589:I have often said the soul cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in a room. (Page 32) ~ Blaise Pascal,

590:I set it down as a fact that if all men knew what each said of the other, there would not be four friends in the world. ~ Blaise Pascal,

591:Man's true nature being lost, everything becomes his nature; as, his true good being lost, everything becomes his good. ~ Blaise Pascal,

592:There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who think they are sinners and the sinners who think they are righteous. ~ Blaise Pascal,

593:The true religion would have to teach greatness and wretchedness, inspire self-esteem and self-contempt, love and hate. ~ Blaise Pascal,

594:Tout notre raisonnement se re duit a' ce der au sentiment. All our reasoning comes down to surrendering to feeling. ~ Blaise Pascal,

595:Who knows if this other half of life where we think we're awake is not another sleep a little different from the first. ~ Blaise Pascal,

596:Being unable to overcome death, misery, and uncertainty, men have agreed, in order to be happy, not to think about them. ~ Blaise Pascal,

597:Equality of possessions is no doubt right, but, as men could not make might obey right, they have made right obey might. ~ Blaise Pascal,

598:I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter." (Letter 16, 1657) ~ Blaise Pascal,

599:Le silence e ternel de ces espaces infinis m'effraie. The eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills me with dread. ~ Blaise Pascal,

600:Nothing is good but mediocrity. The majority has settled that, and finds fault with him who escapes it at whichever end. ~ Blaise Pascal,

601:The incredulous are the more credulous. They believe the miracles of Vespasian that they may not believe those of Moses. ~ Blaise Pascal,

602:The past and present are only our means; the future is always our end. Thus we never really live, but only hope to live. ~ Blaise Pascal,

603:Notre nature est dans le mouvement; le repos entier est la mort. Our nature consists in movement; absolute rest is death. ~ Blaise Pascal,

604:People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive. ~ Blaise Pascal,

605:The greatest single distinguishing feature of the omnipotence of God is that our imagination gets lost thinking about it. ~ Blaise Pascal,

606:The statements of atheists ought to be perfectly clear of doubt. Now it is not perfectly clear that the soul is material. ~ Blaise Pascal,

607:Vanity is so secure in the heart of man that everyone wants to be admired: even I who write this, and you who read this. ~ Blaise Pascal,

608:We do not display greatness by going to one extreme, but in touching both at once, and filling all the intervening space. ~ Blaise Pascal,

609:What must I do? I see nothing but obscurities on every side.' 'Shall I believe I am nothing? Shall I believe I am God? ~ Blaise Pascal,

610:Concupiscence and force are the source of all our actions; concupiscence causes voluntary actions, force involuntary ones. ~ Blaise Pascal,

611:The mind has its arrangement; it proceeds from principles to demonstrations. The heart has a different mode of proceeding. ~ Blaise Pascal,

612:We are only falsehood, duplicity, and contradiction; we both conceal and disguise ourselves from ourselves.” —BLAISE PASCAL ~ Sara Shepard,

613:Weltliche Dinge muß man erkennen, damit man sie lieben kann. Göttliche Dinge muß man lieben, damit man sie erkennen kann. ~ Blaise Pascal,

614:Blaise Pascal is reported to have said, “All human evil comes from a single cause, man’s inability to sit still in a room. ~ David Jeremiah,

615:Desire and force between them are responsible for all our actions; desire causes our voluntary acts, force our involuntary. ~ Blaise Pascal,

616:Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just. ~ Blaise Pascal,

617:Man is obviously made for thinking. Therein lies all his dignity and his merit; and his whole duty is to think as he ought. ~ Blaise Pascal,

618:not in order to become wiser, but only in order to prove that they know them; and these are the most senseless of the band, ~ Blaise Pascal,

619:God wishes to move the will rather than the mind. Perfect clarity would help the mind and harm the will. Humble their pride. ~ Blaise Pascal,

620:Thus men who are naturally conscious of what they are shun nothing, so much as rest; they would do anything to be disturbed. ~ Blaise Pascal,

621:We must kill them in war, just because they live beyond the river. If they lived on this side, we would be called murderers. ~ Blaise Pascal,

622:What part of us feels pleasure? Is it our hand, our arm, our flesh, or our blood? It must obviously be something immaterial. ~ Blaise Pascal,

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

624:Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and the scholars. I will not forget thy word. Amen. ~ Blaise Pascal,

625:It is the heart which perceives God and not the reason. That is what faith is: God perceived by the heart, not by the reason. ~ Blaise Pascal,

626:That which makes us go so far for love is that we never think that we might have need of anything besides that which we love. ~ Blaise Pascal,

627:There should be in eloquence that which is pleasing and that which is real; but that which is pleasing should itself be real. ~ Blaise Pascal,

628:It is good to be tired and wearied by the futile search after the true good, that we may stretch out our arms to the Redeemer. ~ Blaise Pascal,

629:It is your own assent to yourself, and the constant voice of your own reason, and not of others, that should make you believe. ~ Blaise Pascal,

630:Man is neither angel nor beast, and the misfortune is that he who wishes to be an angel becomes a beast’ (Blaise Pascal). ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky,

631:The consciousness of the falsity of present pleasures, and the ignorance of the vanity of absent pleasures, cause inconstancy. ~ Blaise Pascal,

632:The last advance of reason is to recognize that it is surpassed by innumerable things; it is feeble if it cannot realize that. ~ Blaise Pascal,

633:Being unable to cure death, wretchedness and ignorance, men have decided, in order to be happy, not to think about such things. ~ Blaise Pascal,

634:Death itself is less painful when it comes upon us unawares than the bare contemplation of it, even when danger is far distant. ~ Blaise Pascal,

635:I can well conceive a man without hands, feet, head. But I cannot conceive man without thought; he would be a stone or a brute. ~ Blaise Pascal,

636:It is the conduct of God, who disposes all things kindly, to put religion into the mind by reason, and into the heart by grace. ~ Blaise Pascal,

637:La nature a des perfections pour montrer qu’elle est l’image de Dieu, et des défauts pour montrer qu’elle n’en est que l’image. ~ Blaise Pascal,

638:Men often take their imagination for their heart; and they believe they are converted as soon as they think of being converted. ~ Blaise Pascal,

639:What is wonderful, incomparable and wholly divine is that this religion which has always survived has always been under attack. ~ Blaise Pascal,

640:[91] Cause and effect. One must have deeper motives and judge everything accordingly, but go on talking like an ordinary person. ~ Blaise Pascal,

641:Being unable to cure death, wretchedness, and ignorance, men have decided, in order to be happy, not to think about such things. ~ Blaise Pascal,

642:Console-toi, tu ne me chercherais pas si tu ne m'avais trouve . Comfort yourself.You would not seek me if you had not found me. ~ Blaise Pascal,

643:If man made himself the first object of study, he would see how incapable he is of going further. How can a part know the whole? ~ Blaise Pascal,

644:Men are so completely fools by necessity that he is but a fool in a higher strain of folly who does not confess his foolishness. ~ Blaise Pascal,

645:We must know where to doubt, where to feel certain, where to submit. He who does not do so, understands not the force of reason. ~ Blaise Pascal,

646:Anyone who found the secret of rejoicing when things go well without being annoyed when they go badly would have found the point. ~ Blaise Pascal,

647:Clarity of mind means clarity of passion; this is why a great and clear mind loves ardently and sees distinctly what it loves.    ~ Blaise Pascal,

648:Faith indeed tells what the senses do not tell, but not the contrary of what they see. It is above them and not contrary to them. ~ Blaise Pascal,

649:L'on a beau se cacher a' soi-me" me, l'on aime toujours. We vainly conceal from ourselves the fact that we are always in love. ~ Blaise Pascal,

650:[108] What part of us feels pleasure? Is it our hand, our arm, our flesh, or our blood? It must obviously be something immaterial. ~ Blaise Pascal,

651:Civil wars are the greatest of evils. They are inevitable, if we wish to reward merit, for all will say that they are meritorious. ~ Blaise Pascal,

652:I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber. ~ Blaise Pascal,

653:Muhammad established a religion by putting his enemies to death; Jesus Christ by commanding his followers to lay down their lives. ~ Blaise Pascal,

654:Nothing is so intolerable to man as being fully at rest, without a passion, without business, without entertainment, without care. ~ Blaise Pascal,

655:One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life and there is nothing better. ~ Blaise Pascal,

656:Truly it is an evil to be full of faults; but it is a still greater evil to be full of them and to be unwilling to recognize them. ~ Blaise Pascal,

657:We dream of times that are not and blindly flee the only one that is. The fact is that the present usually hurts. —BLAISE PASCAL, ~ Terry McMillan,

658:[138] Diversion. It is easier to bear death when one is not thinking about it than the idea of death when there is no danger. (166) ~ Blaise Pascal,

659:Clarity of mind means clarity of passion, too; this is why a great and clear mind loves ardently and sees distinctly what it loves. ~ Blaise Pascal,

660:One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life, and there is nothing better. ~ Blaise Pascal,

661:The only religion which is against nature, against common sense and against our pleasures is the only one which has always existed. ~ Blaise Pascal,

662:[115] Immateriality of the soul. When philosophers have subdued their passions, what material substance has managed to achieve this? ~ Blaise Pascal,

663:It is not the length of years but a multitude of generations that makes things obscure. For truth is only perverted when men change. ~ Blaise Pascal,

664:The multitude which is not brought to act as a unity, is confusion. That unity which has not its origin in the multitude is tyranny. ~ Blaise Pascal,

665:To tell the truth is useful to those to whom it is spoken, but disadvantageous to those who tell it, because it makes them disliked. ~ Blaise Pascal,

666:All men have happiness as their object: there is no exception. However different the means they employ, they all aim at the same end. ~ Blaise Pascal,

667:It is a dangerous experiment to call in gratitude as an ally to love. Love is a debt which inclination always pays, obligation never. ~ Blaise Pascal,

668: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

669:We make an idol of truth itself, for truth apart from charity is not God, but his image and an idol that we must not love or worship. ~ Blaise Pascal,

670:It has pleased God that divine verities should not enter the heart through the understanding, but the understanding through the heart. ~ Blaise Pascal,

671:How I hate this folly of not believing in the Eucharist, etc.! If the gospel be true, if Jesus Christ be God, what difficulty is there? ~ Blaise Pascal,

672:Man must not be allowed to believe that he is equal either to animals or to angels, nor to be unaware of either, but he must know both. ~ Blaise Pascal,

673:Montaigne is wrong in declaring that custom ought to be followed simply because it is custom, and not because it is reasonable or just. ~ Blaise Pascal,

674:The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of... We know the truth not only by the reason, but by the heart." - Blaise Pascal ~ Blaise Pascal,

675:But what is nature? For is custom not natural? I am much afraid that nature is itself only a first custom, as custom is a second nature. ~ Blaise Pascal,

676:It is natural for the mind to believe and for the will to love; so that, for want of true objects, they must attach themselves to false. ~ Blaise Pascal,

677:If you want to be a real seeker of truth, you need to, at least once in your lifetime, doubt in, as much as it's possible, in everything. ~ Blaise Pascal,

678:L'esprit croit naturellement, et la volonté aime naturellement; de sorte que, faute de vrais objets, il faut qu'ils s'attachent aux faux. ~ Blaise Pascal,

679:We make an idol of truth itself; for truth apart from charity is not God, but His image and idol, which we must neither love nor worship. ~ Blaise Pascal,

680:Eloquence is a painting of thought; and thus those who, after having painted it, add something more, make a picture instead of a portrait. ~ Blaise Pascal,

681:There are vices which have no hold upon us, but in connection with others; and which, when you cut down the trunk, fall like the branches. ~ Blaise Pascal,

682:There is a certain standard of grace and beauty which consists in a certain relation between our nature... and the thing which pleases us. ~ Blaise Pascal,

683:Ultimul act e sângeros; oricât de frumoasă ar fi comedia în rest; ni se aruncă pământ în cap şi cu asta se încheie totul pentru totdeauna. ~ Blaise Pascal,

684:We dream of times that are not and blindly flee the only one that is. The fact is that the present usually hurts. —BLAISE PASCAL, Pensées ~ Terry McMillan,

685: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

686:What a difficult thing it is to ask someone's advice on a matter without coloring his judgment by the way in which we present our problem. ~ Blaise Pascal,

687:People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive. —BLAISE PASCAL ~ Norman L Geisler,

688:There are only two kinds of men: righteous men who believe themselves sinners; the rest, sinners, who believe themselves righteous - Pascal ~ Blaise Pascal,

689:They prefer death to peace, others prefer death to war. Any opinion can be preferred to life, which it seems so natural to love dearly. ~ Blaise Pascal,

690:When we are accustomed to use bad reasons for proving natural effects, we are not willing to receive good reasons when they are discovered. ~ Blaise Pascal,

691:As men who naturally understand their own condition avoid nothing so much as rest, so there is nothing they leave undone in seeking turmoil. ~ Blaise Pascal,

692:If god does not exist, one loses nothing by believing in him anyway, while if he does exist, one stands to lose everything by not believing. ~ Blaise Pascal,

693:Since [man's] true nature has been lost, anything can become his nature: similarly, true good being lost, anything can become his true good. ~ Blaise Pascal,

694:That dog is mine said those poor children; that place in the sun is mine; such is the beginning and type of usurpation throughout the earth. ~ Blaise Pascal,

695: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

696:How I hate these follies of not believing in the Eucharist, &c.! If the Gospel be true, if Jesus Christ be God, what difficulty is there? ~ Blaise Pascal,

697:Religion is so great a thing that it is right that those who will not take the trouble to seek it if it be obscure, should be deprived of it. ~ Blaise Pascal,

698:Thus we never actually live, but hope to live, and since we are always planning how to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so. ~ Blaise Pascal,

699: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

700:All err the more dangerously because each follows a truth. Their mistake lies not in following a falsehood but in not following another truth. ~ Blaise Pascal,

701:It is natural for the mind to believe, and for the will to love; [47] so that, for want of true objects, they must attach themselves to false. ~ Blaise Pascal,

702:Reason commands us far more imperiously than a master; for in disobeying the one we are unfortunate, and in disobeying the other we are fools. ~ Blaise Pascal,

703:When some passion or effect is described in a natural style, we find within ourselves the truth of what we hear, without knowing it was there. ~ Blaise Pascal,

704: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

705:Nothing is thoroughly approved but mediocrity. The majority has established this, and it fixes its fangs on whatever gets beyond it either way. ~ Blaise Pascal,

706:Our notion of symmetry is derived form the human face. Hence, we demand symmetry horizontally and in breadth only, not vertically nor in depth. ~ Blaise Pascal,

707:To doubt is a misfortune, but to seek when in doubt is an indispensable duty. So he who doubts and seeks not is at once unfortunate and unfair. ~ Blaise Pascal,

708:[133] Diversion. Being unable to cure death, wretchedness and ignorance, men have decided, in order to be happy, not to think about such things. ~ Blaise Pascal,

709:All their principles are true, sceptics, stoics, atheists, etc...but their conclusions are false, because the contrary principles are also true. ~ Blaise Pascal,

710:If it is an extraordinary blindness to live without investigating what we are, it is a terrible one to live an evil life, while believing in God ~ Blaise Pascal,

711: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 ~ Blaise Pascal,

712:Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer the same persons. Neither the offender nor the offended are any more themselves. ~ Blaise Pascal,

713:We seek rest in a struggle against some obstacles. And when we have overcome these, rest proves unbearable because of the boredom it produces... ~ Blaise Pascal,

714:If we look at our work immediately after completing it, we are still too involved; if too long afterwards, we cannot pick up the thread again. It ~ Blaise Pascal,

715:Nothing strengthens the case for scepticism more than the fact that there are people who are not sceptics. If they all were, they would be wrong. ~ Blaise Pascal,

716:People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others. ~ Blaise Pascal,

717: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

718:The last act is bloody, however pleasant all the rest of the play is: a little earth is thrown at last upon our head, and that is the end forever. ~ Blaise Pascal,

719:Be comforted; it is not from yourself that you must expect it, but on the contrary you must expect it by expecting nothing from yourself. (Page 55) ~ Blaise Pascal,

720:Faith affirms many things, respecting which the senses are silent, but nothing that they deny. It is superior, but never opposed to their testimony ~ Blaise Pascal,

721:I would have far more fear of being mistaken, and of finding that the Christian religion was true, than of not being mistaken in believing it true. ~ Blaise Pascal,

722:The present is never the mark of our designs. We use both past and present as our means and instruments, but the future only as our object and aim. ~ Blaise Pascal,

723:There are only two kinds of men: righteous men who believe themselves sinners; the rest, sinners, who believe themselves righteous. Pascal, Pensées ~ Blaise Pascal,

724: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

725:E? loquence quipersuade par douceur, non par empire, en tyran, non en roi. Eloquence should persuade gently, not by force or like a tyrant or king. ~ Blaise Pascal,

726:Järelikult tuleb õiglus ja jõud ühendada; ja selleks teha nii, et selle käes, kes on õiglane, oleks jõud, või see, kelle käes on jõud, oleks õiglane ~ Blaise Pascal,

727:The mind naturally makes progress, and the will naturally clings to objects; so that for want of right objects, it will attach itself to wrong ones. ~ Blaise Pascal,

728:Le silence est la plus grande perse cution: jamais les saints ne se sont tus. Silence is the greatest of all persecutions: no saint was ever silent. ~ Blaise Pascal,

729: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

730:We are not satisfied with real life; we want to live some imaginary life in the eyes of other people and to seem different from what we actually are. ~ Blaise Pascal,

731:We like security: we like the pope to be infallible in matters of faith, and grave doctors to be so in moral questions so that we can feel reassured. ~ Blaise Pascal,

732:When we would think of God, how many things we find which turn us away from Him, and tempt us to think otherwise. All this is evil, yet it is innate. ~ Blaise Pascal,

733:As men are not able to fight against death, misery, ignorance, they have taken it into their heads, in order to be happy, not to think of them at all. ~ Blaise Pascal,

734: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

735:No man ever believes with a true and saving faith unless God incline his heart, and no man when God does incline his heart can refrain from believing. ~ Blaise Pascal,

736:The Christian religion teaches me two points-that there is a God whom men can know, and that their nature is so corrupt that they are unworthy of Him. ~ Blaise Pascal,

737:The finite is annihilated in the presence of the infinite, and becomes a pure nothing. So our spirit before God, so our justice before divine justice. ~ Blaise Pascal,

738:Justice is what is established; and thus all our established laws will necessarily be regarded as just without examination, since they are established. ~ Blaise Pascal,

739:Nature has made all her truths independent of one another. Our art makes one dependent on the other. But this is not natural. Each keeps its own place. ~ Blaise Pascal,

740:No man ever believes with a true and saving faith unless God inclines his heart; and no man when God does incline his heart can refrain from believing. ~ Blaise Pascal,

741:The parts of the universe ... all are connected with each other in such a way that I think it to be impossible to understand any one without the whole. ~ Blaise Pascal,

742:They would do better to say: "Our book," "Our commentary," "Our history," etc., because there is in them usually more of other people's than their own. ~ Blaise Pascal,

743:All men naturally hate one another. I hold it a fact, that if men knew exactly what one says of the other, there would not be four friends in the world. ~ Blaise Pascal,

744:God only pours out his light into the mind after having subdued the rebellion of the will by an altogether heavenly gentleness which charms and wins it. ~ Blaise Pascal,

745: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! ~ Blaise Pascal,

746:When a man who accepts the Christian doctrine lives unworthily of it, it is much clearer to say he is a bad Christian than to say he is not a Christian. ~ Blaise Pascal,

747:The parts of the universe . . . all are connected with each other in such a way that I think it to be impossible to understand any one without the whole. ~ Blaise Pascal,

748:The weather and my mood have little connection. I have my foggy and my fine days within me; my prosperity or misfortune has little to do with the matter. ~ Blaise Pascal,

749:Those who do not hate their own selfishness and regard themselves as more important than the rest of the world are blind because the truth lies elsewhere ~ Blaise Pascal,

750: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

751:Merely according to reason, nothing is just in itself, everything shifts with time. Custom is the whole of equity for the sole reason that it is accepted. ~ Blaise Pascal,

752:Our soul is cast into a body, where it finds number, time, dimension. Thereupon it reasons, and calls this nature necessity, and can believe nothing else. ~ Blaise Pascal,

753:For in fact what is man in nature? A Nothing in comparison with the Infinite, an All in comparison with the Nothing, a mean between nothing and everything. ~ Blaise Pascal,

754:Quelque e tendue d'esprit que l'on ait, l'on n'est capable que d'une grande passion. However vast a man's spirit, he is only capable of one great passion. ~ Blaise Pascal,

755:There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus. ~ Blaise Pascal,

756:Who can doubt that we exist only to love? Disguise it, in fact, as we will, we love without intermission... We live not a moment exempt from its influence. ~ Blaise Pascal,

757:Continuous eloquence wearies. Grandeur must be abandoned to be appreciated. Continuity in everything is unpleasant. Cold is agreeable, that we may get warm. ~ Blaise Pascal,

758:Je ne crois que les histoires dont les te moins se feraient e gorger. I only believe in histories told by witnesses who would have had their throats slit. ~ Blaise Pascal,

759:If he exalt himself, I humble him if he humble himself, I exalt him: and I always contradict him, till he understands that he is an incomprehensible monster. ~ Blaise Pascal,

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

761:The art of revolutionizing and overturning states is to undermine established customs, by going back to their origin, in order to mark their want of justice. ~ Blaise Pascal,

762:There is some pleasure in being on board a ship battered by storms when one is certain of not perishing. The persecutions buffeting the Church are like this. ~ Blaise Pascal,

763:All is one, all is different. How many natures exist in man? How many vocations? And by what chance does each man ordinarily choose what he has heard praised? ~ Blaise Pascal,

764: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

765:No one is ignorant that there are two avenues by which opinions are received into the soul, which are its two principal powers: the understanding and the will. ~ Blaise Pascal,

766:The art of subversion, of revolution, is to dislodge established customs by probing down to their origins in order to show how they lack authority and justice. ~ Blaise Pascal,

767:The philosophers talk to you about the dignity of man, and they tempt you to pride, or they talk to you about the misery of man, and they tempt you to despair. ~ Blaise Pascal,

768:There are some who speak well and write badly. For the place and the audience warm them, and draw from their minds more than they think of without that warmth. ~ Blaise Pascal,

769:I cannot judge my work while I am doing it. I have to do as painters do, stand back and view it from a distance, but not too great a distance. How great? Guess. ~ Blaise Pascal,

770:In proportion as our own mind is enlarged we discover a greater number of men of originality. Commonplace people see no difference between one man and another. ~ Blaise Pascal,

771:One-half of the ills of life come because men are unwilling to sit down quietly for thirty minutes to think through all the possible consequences of their acts. ~ Blaise Pascal,

772:S'il se vante, je l'abaisse; s'il s'abaisse, je le vante; et le contredis toujours, jusqu'à qu'il comprenne qu'il est un monstre incompréhensible. ~ Blaise Pascal,

773: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

774:The last function of reason is to recognize that there is an infinity of things which are beyond it. It is but feeble if it does not see so far as to know this. ~ Blaise Pascal,

775:Il est non seulement impossible, mais inutile de conna|"tre Dieu sans Je sus-Christ. It is not only impossible, but also useless to recognize God without Jesus. ~ Blaise Pascal,

776:Notwithstanding the sight of all our miseries, which press upon us and take us by the throat, we have an instinct which we cannot repress, and which lifts us up. ~ Blaise Pascal,

777:S'il se vante, je l'abaisse, S'il s'abaisse, je le vante; Et le contredis toujours, Jusqu'à ce qu'il comprenne Qu'il est un monstre incompréhensible. ~ Blaise Pascal,

778: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

779:There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of each man which cannot be satisfied by any created thing but only by God the Creator, made know through Jesus Christ. ~ Blaise Pascal,

780:When everyone is moving towards depravity, no one seems to be moving, but if someone stops he shows up the others who are rushing on, by acting as a fixed point. ~ Blaise Pascal,

781:When we wish to correct with advantage, and to show another that he errs, we must notice from what side he views the matter, for on that side it is usually true. ~ Blaise Pascal,

782:And is it not obvious that, just as it is a crime to disturb the peace when truth reigns, it is also a crime to remain at peace when the truth is being destroyed? ~ Blaise Pascal,

783:If we must not act save on a certainty, we ought not to act on religion, for it is not certain. But how many things we do on an uncertainty, sea voyages, battles! ~ Blaise Pascal,

784:Too much pleasure disagrees with us. Too many concords are annoying in music; too many benefits irritate us; we wish to have the wherewithal to overpay our debts. ~ Blaise Pascal,

785: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

786:Nothing is good but mediocrity. The majority has settled that, and finds fault with him who escapes it at whichever end... To leave the mean is to abandon humanity. ~ Blaise Pascal,

787:We are only troubled by the fears which we, and not nature, give ourselves, for they add to the state in which we are the passions of the state in which we are not. ~ Blaise Pascal,

788:What can be seen on earth points to neither the total absence nor the obvious presence of divinity, but to the presence of a hidden God. Everything bears this mark. ~ Blaise Pascal,

789:For I should like to know by what right this animal, which recognizes his own weakness, measures God’s mercy and keeps it within limits suggested by his own fancies. ~ Blaise Pascal,

790:O rei está rodeado de pessoas cujo único pensamento é divertir o rei, e evitar que ele pense em si mesmo. Porque ele será infeliz, embora rei, se pensar em si mesmo. ~ Blaise Pascal,

791:Blaise Pascal wrote centuries ago: “I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they are unable to stay quietly in their own room. ~ Anonymous,

792:For the chief malady of man is restless curiosity about things which he cannot understand; and it is not so bad for him to be in error as to be curious to no purpose. ~ Blaise Pascal,

793:La vraie e loquence se moque de l'e loquence, la vraie morale se moque de la morale. True eloquence has notime foreloquence, true morality has no time for morality. ~ Blaise Pascal,

794: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

795:We must sit by these rivers, not under or in them, but above, not standing upright, but sitting down, so that we remain humble by sitting, and safe by remaining above. ~ Blaise Pascal,

796:Curiosity is only vanity. Most frequently we wish not to know, but to talk. We would not take a sea voyage for the sole pleasure of seeing without hope of ever telling. ~ Blaise Pascal,

797:Imagination cannot make fools wise, but it makes them happy, as against reason, which only makes its friends wretched: one covers them with glory, the other with shame. ~ Blaise Pascal,

798:Lord, help me to do great things as though they were little, since I do them with your power; And little things as though they were great, since I do them in your name! ~ Blaise Pascal,

799:The greatest and most important thing in the world is founded on weakness. This is a remarkably sure foundation, for nothing is surer than that the people will be weak. ~ Blaise Pascal,

800: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

801:Let it not be imagined that the life of a good Christian must be a life of melancholy and gloominess; for he only resigns some pleasures to enjoy others infinitely better. ~ Blaise Pascal,

802:Let no one say that I have said nothing new... the arrangement of the subject is new. When we play tennis, we both play with the same ball, but one of us places it better. ~ Blaise Pascal,

803:Nature does nothing to avoid the vacuum; rather the weight of the air masses is the true reason for all these phenomena which we have been ascribing to an imaginary cause. ~ Blaise Pascal,

804: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

805:If I believe in God and life after death and you do not, and if there is no God, we both lose when we die. However, if there is a God, you still lose and I gain everything. ~ Blaise Pascal,

806:is in vain, O men, that you seek within yourselves the remedy for your ills. All your light can only reach the knowledge that not in yourselves will you find truth or good. ~ Blaise Pascal,

807:Necessity, that great refuge and excuse for human frailty, breaks through all law; and he is not to be accounted in fault whose crime is not the effect of choice, but force. ~ Blaise Pascal,

808:Our true dignity consists — in thought. Thence we must derive our elevation, not from space or duration. Let us endeavor then to think well; this is the principle of morals. ~ Blaise Pascal,

809:The last proceeding of reason is to recognize that there is an infinity of things which are beyond it. There is nothing so conformable to reason as this disavowal of reason. ~ Blaise Pascal,

810:Those who make antitheses by forcing the sense are like men who make false windows for the sake of symmetry. Their rule is not to speak justly, but to make accurate figures. ~ Blaise Pascal,

811:Voilà notre état véritable. C'est ce qui resserre nos connaissances en de certaines bornes que nous ne pas sons pas, incapables de savoir tout, et d'ignorer tout absolument. ~ Blaise Pascal,

812:All our life passes in this way: we seek rest by struggling against certain obstacles, and once they are overcome, rest proves intolerable because of the boredom it produces. ~ Blaise Pascal,

813:If he exalts himself, I humble him. If he humbles himself, I exalt him. And I go on contradicting him Until he understands That he is a monster that passes all understanding. ~ Blaise Pascal,

814: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

815:We do not worry about being respected in towns through which we pass. But if we are going to remain in one for a certain time, we do worry. How long does this time have to be? ~ Blaise Pascal,

816: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

817:Look somewhere else for someone who can follow you in your researches about numbers. For my part, I confess that they are far beyond me, and I am competent only to admire them. ~ Blaise Pascal,

818:The immortality of the soul is a matter which is of so great consequence to us and which touches us so profoundly that we must have lost all feeling to be indifferent about it. ~ Blaise Pascal,

819:We see neither justice nor injustice which does not change its nature with change in climate. Three degrees of latitude reverse all jurisprudence; a meridian decides the truth. ~ Blaise Pascal,

820:There are some who see clearly that man has no other enemy but concupiscence, which turns him away from God, and not [human] enemies, no other good but God, and not a rich land. ~ Blaise Pascal,

821:A true friend is so great an advantage, even for the greatest lords, in order that he may speak well of them, and back them in their absence, that they should do all to have one. ~ Blaise Pascal,

822:I condemn equally those who choose to praise man, those who choose to condemn him and those who choose to divert themselves, and I can only approve of those who seek with groans. ~ Blaise Pascal,

823:Imagination magnifies small objects with fantastic exaggeration until they fill our soul, and with bold insolence cuts down great things to its own size, as when speaking of God. ~ Blaise Pascal,

824:Let us now speak according to natural lights. If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible. . . . We are then incapable of knowing of either what He is or if He is. . . . ~ Blaise Pascal,

825:La chose la plus importante a' toute la vie est le choix du me tier: le hasard en dispose. The most important thing in life is to choose a profession: chance arranges for that. ~ Blaise Pascal,

826:La dernie' re chose qu'on trouve en faisant un ouvrage, est de savoir celle qu'il faut mettre la premie' re. The last thing one discovers in composing a work iswhat to put first. ~ Blaise Pascal,

827:The mind must not be forced; artificial and constrained manners fill it with foolish presumption, through unnatural elevation and vain and ridiculous inflation, instead of solid and ~ Blaise Pascal,

828:El matemático francés Blaise Pascal describió muy bien este problema en su célebre frase: “Lamento haber escrito esta carta tan larga, pero no tenía tiempo para hacerla más corta”. ~ Richard Branson,

829:So we can only know God well by knowing our iniquities. Therefore those who have known God, without knowing their wretchedness, have not glorified Him, but have glorified themselves. ~ Blaise Pascal,

830:The origins of disputes between philosophers is, that one class of them have undertaken to raise man by displaying his greatness, and the other to debase him by showing his miseries. ~ Blaise Pascal,

831: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 ~ Blaise Pascal,

832:Custom creates the whole of equity, for the simple reason that it is accepted. It is the mystical foundation of its authority; whoever carries it back to first principles destroys it. ~ Blaise Pascal,

833:Human life is thus only an endless illusion. Men deceive and flatter each other. No one speaks of us in our presence as he does when we are gone. Society is based on mutual hypocrisy. ~ Blaise Pascal,

834:Kind words do not cost much. They never blister the tongue or lips. They make other people good-natured. They also produce their own image on men's souls, and a beautiful image it is. ~ Blaise Pascal,

835:The imagination enlarges little objects so as to fill our souls with a fantastic estimate; and, with rash insolence, it belittles the great to its own measure, as when talking of God. ~ Blaise Pascal,

836:All the excesses, all the violence, and all the vanity of great men, come from the fact that they know not what they are: it being difficult for those who regard themselves at heart as ~ Blaise Pascal,

837:Bless yourself with holy water, have Masses said, and so on; by a simple and natural process this will make you believe, and will dull you - will quiet your proudly critical intellect. ~ Blaise Pascal,

838:What is it, in your opinion, to be a great nobleman? It is to be master of several objects that men covet, and thus to be able to satisfy the wants and the desires of many. It is these ~ Blaise Pascal,

839: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

840:Jesus was in a garden, not of delight as the first Adam, in which he destroyed himself and the whole human race, but in one of agony, in which he saved himself and the whole human race. ~ Blaise Pascal,

841:Reverend Fathers, my letters did not usually follow each other at such close intervals, nor were they so long.... This one would not be so long had I but the leisure to make it shorter. ~ Blaise Pascal,

842:The method of not erring is sought by all the world. The logicians profess to guide it, the geometricians alone attain it, and apart from science, and the imitations of it, there are no ~ Blaise Pascal,

843:If he exalts himself, I humble him. If he humbles himself, I exalt him. And I go on contradicting him Until he understands That he is a monster that passes all understanding. ~ Blaise Pascal,

844:In order to enter into a real knowledge of your condition, consider it in this image: A man was cast by a tempest upon an unknown island, the inhabitants of which were in trouble to find ~ Blaise Pascal,

845:L'homme n'est qu'un sujet plein d'erreur, naturelle et ineffa c° able sans la gra" ce. Man is nothing but a subject full of natural error that cannot be eradicated except through grace. ~ Blaise Pascal,

846:A few rules include all that is necessary for the perfection of the definitions, the axioms, and the demonstrations, and consequently of the entire method of the geometrical proofs of the ~ Blaise Pascal,

847:Human things must be known to be loved; but Divine things must be loved to be known. ~ Blaise Pascal, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 496,

848:I would inquire of reasonable persons whether this principle: Matter is naturally wholly incapable of thought, and this other: I think, therefore I am, are in fact the same in the mind of ~ Blaise Pascal,

849:Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarreled with him? ~ Blaise Pascal,

850:For as old age is that period of life most remote from infancy, who does not see that old age in this universal man ought not to be sought in the times nearest his birth, but in those most ~ Blaise Pascal,

851:If magistrates had true justice, and if physicians had the true art of healing, they would have no occasion for square caps; the majesty of these sciences would itself be venerable enough. ~ Blaise Pascal,

852:Let us weigh the gain and the loss, in wagering that God is. Consider these alternatives: if you win, you win all, if you lose you lose nothing. Do not hesitate, then, to wager that he is. ~ Blaise Pascal,

853:Man is to himself the most wonderful object in nature; for he cannot conceive what the body is, still less what the mind is, and least of all how a body should be united to a mind. This is ~ Blaise Pascal,

854:Put the world's greatest philosopher on a plank that is wider than need be; if there is a precipe below, although his reason may convince him that he is safe, his imagination will prevail. ~ Blaise Pascal,

855:You are in the same manner surrounded with a small circle of persons... full of desire. They demand of you the benefits of desire... You are therefore properly the king of desire. ...equal ~ Blaise Pascal,

856: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 ~ Blaise Pascal,

857:Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him? ~ Blaise Pascal,

858:Custom is a second nature which destroys the former. But what is nature? For is custom not natural? I am much afraid that nature is itself only a first custom, as custom is a second nature. ~ Blaise Pascal,

859: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

860:There are hardly any truths upon which we always remain agreed, and still fewer objects of pleasure which we do not change every hour, I do not know whether there is a means of giving fixed ~ Blaise Pascal,

861:At the far end of this infinite distance a coin is being spun which will come down heads or tails. How will you wager? Reason cannot make you choose either, reason cannot prove either wrong. ~ Blaise Pascal,

862:La dernière chose qu'on trouve en faisant un ouvrage est de savoir celle qu'il faut mettre la première. (The last thing one settles in writing a book is what one should put in first.) ~ Blaise Pascal,

863:Make religion attractive, make good men wish it were true, and then show that it is. Worthy of reverence because it really understands human nature. Attractive because it promises true good. ~ Blaise Pascal,

864:Put the world’s greatest philosopher on a plank that is wider than need be: if there is a precipice below, although his reason may convince him that he is safe, his imagination will prevail. ~ Blaise Pascal,

865:[96]. Cause and effect. Human weakness is the reason for so many canons of beauty; for instance, being a good lute-player. It is only our weakness which makes it a bad thing [not to be one?]. ~ Blaise Pascal,

866:Dieu, par sa miséricorde, donne, quand il lui plaît, aux justes le pouvoir plein et parfait d’accomplir les préceptes, et qu’il ne le donne pas toujours, par un jugement juste, quoique caché. ~ Blaise Pascal,

867:No one is discontented at not being a king except a discrowned king ... unhappiness almost invariably indicates the existence of a road not taken, a talent undeveloped, a self not recognized. ~ Blaise Pascal,

868:The arithmetical machine produces effects that approach nearer to thought than all the actions of animals. But it does nothing that would enable us to attribute will to it, as to the animals. ~ Blaise Pascal,

869:Who confers reputation? who gives respect and veneration to persons, to books, to great men? Who but Opinion? How utterly insufficient are all the riches of the world without her approbation! ~ Blaise Pascal,

870:All men naturally hate one another. They employ lust as far as possible in the service of the public weal. But this is only a pretence and a false image of love; for at bottom it is only hate. ~ Blaise Pascal,

871: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

872:We sometimes learn more from the sight of evil than from an example of good; and it is well to accustom ourselves to profit by the evil which is so common, while that which is good is so rare. ~ Blaise Pascal,

873:Who dispenses reputation? Who makes us respect and revere persons, works, laws, the great? Who but this faculty of imagination? All the riches of the earth are inadequate without its approval. ~ Blaise Pascal,

874:Habit is a second nature that destroys the first. But what is nature? Why is habit not natural? I am very much afraid that nature itself is only a first habit, just as habit is a second nature. ~ Blaise Pascal,

875:Habit is a second nature thta destroys the first. But what is nature? Why is habit not natural? I am very much afraid that nature itself is only a first habit, just as habit is a second nature. ~ Blaise Pascal,

876:L'homme n'est ni ange ni be" te, et le malheur veut que qui veut faire l'ange fait la be" te. Man is neither angel nor beast.Unfortunately, he who wants to act the angel often acts the beast. ~ Blaise Pascal,

877:Man's greatness comes from knowing that he is wretched: a tree does not know it is wretched. Thus it is wretched to know that one is wretched, but there is greatness in knowing one is wretched. ~ Blaise Pascal,

878:Le nez de Cle opa" tre: s'il e u" t e te plus court, toute la face de la terre aurait change . Cleopatra'snose: if it had beenshorter the whole face of the earth would have been different. ~ Blaise Pascal,

879:Nous ne nous contentons pas de la vie que nous avons en nous et en notre propre être. Nous voulons vivre dans l’idée des autres d’une vie imaginaire, et nous nous efforçons pour cela de paraître ~ Blaise Pascal,

880:The immortality of the soul is a matter which is of so great consequence to us, and which touches us so profoundly, that we must have lost all feeling to be indifferent as to knowing what it is. ~ Blaise Pascal,

881:There is enough light to enlighten the elect and enough obscurity to humiliate them. There is enough obscurity to blind the reprobate and enough light to condemn them and deprive them of excuse. ~ Blaise Pascal,

882:Truly it is an evil to be full of faults; but it is a still greater evil to be full of them and to be unwilling to recognize them, since that is to add the further fault of a voluntary illusion. ~ Blaise Pascal,

883:All men naturally hate each other. We have used concupiscence as best we can to make it serve the common good, but this is mere sham and a false image of charity, for essentially it is just hate. ~ Blaise Pascal,

884: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 relations of all those things. And then we shall be very cautious. ~ Blaise Pascal,

885:That something so obvious as the vanity of the world should be so little recognized that people find it odd and surprising to be told that it is foolish to seek greatness; that is most remarkable. ~ Blaise Pascal,

886:...for the truth is always older than all the opinions men have held regarding it; and one should be ignoring the nature of truth if we imagined that the truth began at the time it came to be known. ~ Blaise Pascal,

887:I do not know whether God exists, but I know that I have nothing to gain from being an atheist if he does not exist, whereas I have plenty to lose if he does. Hence, this justifies my belief in God. ~ Blaise Pascal,

888:If you believe in God you are at no disadvantage in this life, and at considerable advantage in the next. If you do not believe, but find in the next that there was a next, you are most unfortunate! ~ Blaise Pascal,

889:We desire truth, and find within ourselves only uncertainty. We seek happiness, and find only misery and death. We cannot but desire truth and happiness, and are incapable of certainty or happiness. ~ Blaise Pascal,

890: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...? ~ Blaise Pascal,

891:Those who write against vanity want the glory of having written well, and their readers the glory of reading well, and I who write this have the same desire, as perhaps those who read this have also. ~ Blaise Pascal,

892:There is nothing that we can see on earth which does not either show the wretchedness of man or the mercy of God. One either sees the powerlessness of man without God, or the strength of man with God. ~ Blaise Pascal,

893:Those great efforts of intellect, upon which the mind sometimes touches, are such that it cannot maintain itself there. It only leaps to them, not as upon a throne, forever, but merely for an instant. ~ Blaise Pascal,

894:Certain authors, speaking of their works, say: "My book," "My commentary," "My history," etc. They resemble middle-class people who have a house of their own and always have "My house" on their tongue. ~ Blaise Pascal,

895:Însa în cazul în care universul l-ar strivi, omul ar fi înca mai nobil decât ceea ce-l ucide; pentru ca el stie ca moare; iar avantajul pe care universul îl are asupra lui, acest univers nu-l cunoaste. ~ Blaise Pascal,

896:Man's greatness is great in that he knows himself wretched. A tree does not know itself wretched. It is then being wretched to know oneself wretched; but it is being great to know that one is wretched. ~ Blaise Pascal,

897:Piety is different from superstition. To carry piety to the extent of superstition is to destroy it. The heretics reproach us with this superstitious submission. It is doing what they reproach us with. ~ Blaise Pascal,

898:Vanity of science. Knowledge of physical science will not console me for ignorance of morality in time of affliction, but knowledge of morality will always console me for ignorance of physical science. ~ Blaise Pascal,

899:We feel neither extreme heat nor extreme cold; qualities that are in excess are so much at variance with our feelings that they are impalpable: we do not feel them, though we suffer from their effects. ~ Blaise Pascal,

900:What reason have atheists for saying that we cannot rise again? That what has never been, should be, or that what has been, should be again? Is it more difficult to come into being than to return to it. ~ Blaise Pascal,

901:Without [diversion] we would be in a state of weariness, and this weariness would spur us on to seek a more solid means of escaping from it. But diversion amuses us, and leads us unconsciously to death. ~ Blaise Pascal,

902:Can anything be more ridiculous than that a man should have the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of the sea, and because his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have none with him. ~ Blaise Pascal,

903:Our achievements of today are but the sum total of our thoughts of yesterday. You are today where the thoughts of yesterday have brought you and you will be tomorrow where the thoughts of today take you. ~ Blaise Pascal,

904:Man is clearly made to think. It is his whole dignity and his whole merit; and his whole duty is to think as he ought. And the order of thought is to begin with ourselves, and with our Author and our end. ~ Blaise Pascal,

905:We know the truth not only through our reason but also through our heart. It is through the latter that we know first principles, and reason, which has nothing to do with it, tries in vain to refute them. ~ Blaise Pascal,

906:[23] Vanity of science. Knowledge of physical science will not console me for ignorance of morality in time of affliction, but knowledge of morality will always console me for ignorance of physical science. ~ Blaise Pascal,

907:A given man lives a life free from boredom by gambling a small sum every day. Give him every morning the money he might win that day, but on condition that he does not gamble, and you will make him unhappy. ~ Blaise Pascal,

908:Each man is everything to himself, for with his death everything is dead for him. That is why each of us thinks he is everything to everyone. We must not judge nature by ourselves, but by its own standards. ~ Blaise Pascal,

909:We conceal it from ourselves in vain - we must always love something. In those matters seemingly removed from love, the feeling is secretly to be found, and man cannot possibly live for a moment without it. ~ Blaise Pascal,

910:Ainsi s'écoule toute la vie ; on cherche le repos en combattant quelques obstacles et si on les a surmontés le repos devient insupportable par l'ennui qu'il engendre. Il en faut sortir et mendier le tumulte. ~ Blaise Pascal,

911:We do not sustain ourselves in virtue by our own strength, but by the balancing of two opposed vices, just as we remain upright amidst two contrary gales. Remove one of the vices, and we fall into the other. ~ Blaise Pascal,

912:To be of noble birth is a great advantage. In eighteen years it places a man within the select circle, known and respected, as another have merited in fifty years. It is a gain of thirty years without trouble. ~ Blaise Pascal,

913:É impossível compreender que Deus exista, e é também impossível compreender que não exista; que a alma esteja unida ao corpo, e que não exista alma; que o mundo tenha sido criado, e que não tenha sido criado... ~ Blaise Pascal,

914:Since we cannot be universal and know all that is to be known of everything, we ought to know a little about everything. For it is far better to know something about everything than to know all about one thing. ~ Blaise Pascal,

915:We know that we are not dreaming, but, however unable we may be to prove it rationally, our inability proves nothing but the weakness of our reason, and not the uncertainty of all our knowledge as they maintain. ~ Blaise Pascal,

916:God being thus hidden, any religion that does not say that God is hidden is not true, and any religion which does not explain why does not instruct. Ours does all thus. Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself.1 ~ Blaise Pascal,

917:I cannot forgive Descartes. In all his philosophy he would have been quite willing to dispense with God. But he had to make Him give a fillip to set the world in motion; beyond this, he has no further need of God. ~ Blaise Pascal,

918:We are so presumptuous that we wish to be known to all the world, even to those who come after us; and we are so vain that the esteem of five or six persons immediately around us is enough to amuse and satisfy us. ~ Blaise Pascal,

919:As I write down my thought it sometimes escapes me, but that reminds me of my weakness, which I am always forgetting, and teaches me as much as my forgotten thought, for I care only about knowing that I am nothing. ~ Blaise Pascal,

920:Se moquer de la philosophie c’est vraiment philosophe. - To ridicule philosophy is truly philosophical. ~ Blaise Pascal, Pensées (1669), Article VII. 35. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 596-97.,

921: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

922:Fashion is a tyrant from which nothing frees us. We must suit ourselves to its fantastic tastes. But being compelled to live under its foolish laws, the wise man is never the first to follow, nor the last to keep it. ~ Blaise Pascal,

923:Two contrary reasons. We must begin with that, otherwise we cannot understand anything and everything is heretical. And even at the end of each truth we must add that we are bearing the opposite truth in mind. ~ Blaise Pascal,

924:When you say that Christ did not die for all men, you are abusing a weakness of men, who at once apply this exception to themselves, and this encourages despair, instead of turning them away from it to encourage hope. ~ Blaise Pascal,

925:Ci Puo' essere quakcosa di piu' stupido del fatto che un uomo abbia il diritto di uccidermi perche' vive sull'altra sponda di un fiume e il suo sovrano ha avuto una lite con il mio, anche se io non ho litigato con lui? ~ Blaise Pascal,

926:Let us weigh up the gain and the loss involved in calling heads that God exists. Let us assess the two cases: if you win you win everything, if you lose you lose nothing. Do not hesitate then; wager that he does exist. ~ Blaise Pascal,

927:Thus our dignity consists in thought. It is on thought that we must depend for our recovery, not on space and time, which we could never fill. Let us then strive to think well; that is basic principle of morality. (54) ~ Blaise Pascal,

928:Without Jesus Christ man must be in vice and misery with Jesus Christ man is free from vice and misery in Him is all our virtue and all our happiness. Apart from Him there is but vice, misery, darkness, death, despair. ~ Blaise Pascal,

929:Man is so made that by continually telling him he is a fool he believes it, and by continually telling it to himself he makes himself believe it. For man holds an inward talk with himself, which it pays him to regulate. ~ Blaise Pascal,

930:As we cannot be universal by knowing everything there is to be known about everything, we must know a little about everything, because it is much better to know something about everything than everything about something. ~ Blaise Pascal,

931: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

932:All our life passes in this way: we seek rest by struggling against certain obstacles, and once they are overcome, rest proves intolerable because of the boredom it produces. We must get away from it and crave excitement. ~ Blaise Pascal,

933:It is not in space that I must seek my human dignity, but in the ordering of my thought. It will do me no good to own land. Through space the universe grasps me and swallows me up like a speck; through thought I grasp it. ~ Blaise Pascal,

934:Know then, proud man, what a paradox you are to yourself. Be humble, impotent reason! Be silent, feeble nature! Learn that man infinitely transcends man, hear from your master your true condition, which is unknown to you. ~ Blaise Pascal,

935:Unless we know ourselves to be full of pride, ambition, concupiscence, weakness, wretchedness and unrighteousness, we are truly blind. And if someone knows all this and does not desire to be saved, what can be said of him? ~ Blaise Pascal,

936:Discourses on humility are a source of pride in the vain and of humility in the humble. So those on scepticism cause believers to affirm. Few men speak humbly of humility, chastely of chastity, few doubtingly of scepticism. ~ Blaise Pascal,

937:How comes it that a cripple does not offend us, but a fool does? Because a cripple recognizes that we walk straight, whereas a fool declares that it is we who are silly; if it were not so, we should feel pity and not anger. ~ Blaise Pascal,

938:Thus passes away all man's life. Men seek rest in a struggle against difficulties; and when they have conquered these, rest becomes insufferable. For we think either of the misfortunes we have or of those which threaten us. ~ Blaise Pascal,

939:Without the knowledge of our wretchedness, the knowledge of God creates pride. With it, the knowledge of God creates despair. The knowledge of Christ offers a third way, because in him we find both God and our wretchedness. ~ Blaise Pascal,

940: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

941:The secrets of nature are concealed; her agency is perpetual, but we do not always discover its effects; time reveals them from age to age; and although she is always the same in herself, she is not always equally well known. ~ Blaise Pascal,

942:The gist is that good and evil are foreordained. What is foreordained comes necessarily to be after a prior act of divine volition...Rather, everything small and large is written and comes to be in a known and expected measure. ~ Blaise Pascal,

943: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

944:When we see an effect happen always in the same manner, we infer that it takes place by a natural necessity; as, for instance, that the sun will rise to morrow; but nature often deceives us, and will not submit to its own rules. ~ Blaise Pascal,

945:[104] What a great advantage to be of noble birth, since it gives a man of eighteen the standing, recognition and respect that another man might not earn before he was fifty. That means winning thirty years’ start with no effort. ~ Blaise Pascal,

946:Knowing God without knowing our own wretchedness makes for pride. Knowing our own wretchedness without knowing God makes for despair. Knowing Jesus Christ strikes the balance because he shows us both God and our own wretchedness. ~ Blaise Pascal,

947:Nothing is so important to man as his own state; nothing is so formidable to him as eternity. And thus it is unnatural that thereshould be men indifferent to the loss of their existence and to the perils of everlasting suffering. ~ Blaise Pascal,

948: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

949:We know the existence of the infinite without knowing its nature, because it too has extension but unlike us no limits. But we do not know either the existence or the nature of God, because he has neither extension nor limits. ~ Blaise Pascal,

950: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

951:The only thing which consoles for our miseries is diversion, and yet this is the greatest of our miseries. For it is this which principally hinders us from reflecting upon ourselves and which makes us imperceptibly ruin ourselves. ~ Blaise Pascal,

952:A town, a landscape are when seen from afar a town and a landscape; but as one gets nearer, there are houses, trees, tiles leaves, grasses, ants, legs of ants and so on to infinity. All this is subsumed under the name of landscape. ~ Blaise Pascal,

953:Man finds nothing so intolerable as to be in a state of complete rest, without passions, without occupation, without diversion, without effort. Then he feels his nullity, loneliness, inadequacy, dependence, helplessness, emptiness. ~ Blaise Pascal,

954:Reflect on death as in Jesus Christ, not as without Jesus Christ. Without Jesus Christ it is dreadful, it is alarming, it is the terror of nature. In Jesus Christ it is fair and lovely, it is good and holy, it is the joy of saints. ~ Blaise Pascal,

955:The exterior must be joined to the interior to obtain anything from God, that is to say, we must kneel, pray with the lips, and soon, in order that proud man, who would not submit himself to God, may be now subject to the creature. ~ Blaise Pascal,

956:[111] I can certainly imagine a man without hands, feet, or head, for it is only experience that teaches us that the head is more necessary than the feet. But I cannot imagine a man without thought; he would be a stone or an animal. ~ Blaise Pascal,

957:Caesar was too old, it seems to me, to go off and amuse himself conquering the world. Such a pastime was all right for Augustus and Alexander; they were young men, not easily held in check, but Caesar ought to have been more mature. ~ Blaise Pascal,

958:It is not from space that I must seek my dignity, but from the government of my thought. I shall have no more if I possess worlds. By space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an atom; by thought I comprehend the world. ~ Blaise Pascal,

959:To find recreation in amusements is not happiness; for this joy springs from alien and extrinsic sources, and is therefore dependent upon and subject to interruption by a thousand accidents, which may minister inevitable affliction. ~ Blaise Pascal,

960:If God exists, not seeking God must be the gravest error imaginable. If one decides to sincerely seek for God and doesn't find God, the lost effort is negligible in comparison to what is at risk in not seeking God in the first place. ~ Blaise Pascal,

961:We do not weary of eating and sleeping every day, for hunger and sleepiness recur. Without that we should weary of them. So, without the hunger for spiritual things, we weary of them. Hunger after righteousness--the eighth beatitude. ~ Blaise Pascal,

962:The greatness of man is great in that he knows himself to be miserable. A tree does not know itself to be miserable. It is then being miserable to know oneself to be miserable; but it is also being great to know that one is miserable. ~ Blaise Pascal,

963:The manner in which Epictetus, Montaigne, and Salomon de Tultie wrote, is the most usual, the most suggestive, the most remembered, and the oftener quoted; because it is entirely composed of thoughts born from the common talk of life. ~ Blaise Pascal,

964:There was once in man a true happiness of which there now remain to him only the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present. ~ Blaise Pascal,

965:I can readily conceive of a man without hands or feet; and I could conceive of him without a head, if experience had not taught me that by this he thinks, Thought then, is the essence of man, and without this we cannot conceive of him. ~ Blaise Pascal,

966:I take it as a matter not to be disputed, that if all knew what each said of the other, there would not be four friends in the world. This seems proved by the quarrels and disputes caused by the disclosures which are occasionally made. ~ Blaise Pascal,

967: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

968:Knowing God without knowing our own wretchedness makes for pride. Knowing our own wretchedness without knowing God makes for despair. Knowing Jesus Christ strikes the balance because he shows us both God and our own wretchedness. ~ Blaise Pascal,

969:To go beyond the bounds of moderation is to outrage humanity. The greatness of the human soul is shown by knowing how to keep within proper bounds. There are two equally dangerous extremes- to shut reason out, and not to let nothing in. ~ Blaise Pascal,

970:Not only do we know God by Jesus Christ alone, but we know ourselves only by Jesus Christ. We know life and death only through Jesus Christ. Apart from Jesus Christ, we do not know what is our life, nor our death, nor God, nor ourselves. ~ Blaise Pascal,

971:Things have different qualities, and the soul different inclinations; for nothing is simple which is presented to the soul, and the soul never presents itself simply to any object. Hence it comes that we weep and laugh at the same thing. ~ Blaise Pascal,

972:It is not from space that I must seek my dignity, but from the government of my thought. I shall have no more if I possess worlds. By space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an atom; by thought I comprehend the world. ~ Blaise Pascal,

973:What kind of man had the Messiah to be, since through him the sceptre was to remain for ever in Judah, but at his coming the sceptre was to be removed from Judah? To ensure that seeing they should not see and hearing they should not hear, ~ Blaise Pascal,

974:Christianity is strange. It bids man recognise that he is vile, even abominable, and bids him desire to be like God. Without such a counterpoise, this dignity would make him horribly vain, or this humiliation would make him terribly abject. ~ Blaise Pascal,

975: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

976:So imprudent are we that we wander in the times which are nor ours, and do not think of the only one which belongs to us; and so idle are we that we dream of those times which are no more, and thoughtlessly overlook that which alone exists. ~ Blaise Pascal,

977:So imprudent are we that we wander in the times which are not ours, and do not think of the only one which belongs to us; and so idle are we that we dream of those times which are no more, and thoughtlessly overlook that which alone exists. ~ Blaise Pascal,

978:The Christian's God does not merely consist of a God who is the Author of mathematical truths and the order of the elements. The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of the Christians, is a God of love and consolation. ~ Blaise Pascal,

979:They say that eclipses are portents of disaster, because disasters are so common, and misfortune occurs often enough for these forecasts to be right, whereas if they said that eclipses were portents of good fortune they would often be wrong. ~ Blaise Pascal,

980:Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists. ~ Blaise Pascal,

981:Eloquence is an art of saying things in such a way (1) that those to whom we speak may listen to them without pain and with pleasure; (2) that they feel themselves interested, so that self-love leads them more willingly to reflection upon it. ~ Blaise Pascal,

982:Do not be astonished to see simple people believing without argument. God makes them love him and hate themselves. He inclines their hearts to believe. We shall never believe, with an effective belief and faith, unless God inclines our hearts. ~ Blaise Pascal,

983:The two principles of truth, reason and senses, are not only both not genuine, but are engaged in mutual deception. The senses deceive reason through false appearances, and the senses are disturbed by passions, which produce false impressions. ~ Blaise Pascal,

984:Donc il donne, à ceux qui le demandent, le secours qu’ils n’avoient pas quand ils ont reçu le commandement. « Et ses préceptes ne sont pas pesans ; car ceux qui sont enfans de Dieu, aiment Jésus-Christ ; et ceux qui l’aiment, gardent sa parole. » ~ Blaise Pascal,

985:Let us then realize our limitations. We are something and we are not everything. Such being as we have conceals from us the knowledge of first principles, which arise from nothingness, and the smallness of our being hides infinity from our sight. ~ Blaise Pascal,

986:We are so presumptuous that we should like to be known all over the world, even by people who will only come when we are no more. Such is our vanity that the good opinion of half a dozen of the people around us gives us pleasure and satisfaction. ~ Blaise Pascal,

987:Reverend Fathers, my letters do not customarily follow one another so closely, nor are they usually so extensive. The little time I have had has caused both. I have made this one longer only because I have not had the leisure of making it shorter. ~ Blaise Pascal,

988:What do the prophets say about Jesus Christ? That he will plainly be God? No, but that he is a truly hidden God, that he will not be recognized, that people will not believe that it is he, that he will be a stumbling-block on which many will fall, ~ Blaise Pascal,

989:God is or He is not. But to which side shall we incline? Let us weigh the gain and the lose in wagering that God is. Let us estimate the two changes. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, lose nothing. Wager then without any hesitation that He is ~ Blaise Pascal,

990:One of the greatest artifices the devil uses to engage men in vice and debauchery, is to fasten names of contempt on certain virtues, and thus fill weak souls with a foolish fear of passing for scrupulous, should they desire to put them in practice. ~ Blaise Pascal,

991:Inconstancy.—Things have different qualities, and the soul different inclinations; for nothing is simple which is presented to the soul, and the soul never presents itself simply to any object. Hence it comes that we weep and laugh at the same thing. ~ Blaise Pascal,

992:and the same man who spends so many days and nights in fury and despair at losing some office or at some imaginary affront to his honour is the very one who knows that he is going to lose everything through death and feels neither anxiety nor emotion. ~ Blaise Pascal,

993:True eloquence makes light of eloquence, true morality makes light of morality; that is to say, the morality of the judgment, which has no rules, makes light of the morality of the intellect.... To make light of philosophy is to be a true philosopher. ~ Blaise Pascal,

994:Eloquence is a way of saying things in such a way, first, that those to whom we speak may listen to them without pain and with pleasure, and second, that they feel themselves interested, so that self-love leads them more willingly to reflection upon it. ~ Blaise Pascal,

995: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

996:Nature imitates herself. A grain thrown into good ground brings forth fruit; a principle thrown into a good mind brings forth fruit. Everything is created and conducted by the same Master-the root, the branch, the fruits-the principles, the consequences. ~ Blaise Pascal,

997:What people want is not the easy peaceful life that allows us to think of our unhappy condition, nor the dangers of war, nor the burdens of office, but the agitation that takes our mind off it and diverts us. That is why we prefer the hunt to the capture. ~ Blaise Pascal,

998:When malice has reason on its side, it looks forth bravely, and displays that reason in all its luster. When austerity and self-denial have not realized true happiness, and the soul returns to the dictates of nature, the reaction is fearfully extravagant. ~ Blaise Pascal,

999:Our senses will not admit anything extreme. Too much noise confuses us, too much light dazzles us, too great distance or nearness prevents vision, too great prolixity or brevity weakens an argument, too much pleasure gives pain, too much accordance annoys. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1000:Everything which does not lead to charity is figurative. The sole object of Scripture is charity. Everything that does not lead to this sole good is figurative. For, since there is only one goal, everything that does not lead to it explicitly is figurative. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1001: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1002:Human beings do not know their place and purpose. They have fallen from their true place, and lost their true purpose. They search everywhere for their place and purpose, with great anxiety. But they cannot find them because they are surrounded by darkness. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1003:It is certain that the soul is either mortal or immortal. The decision of this question must make a total difference in the principles of morals. Yet philosophers have arranged their moral system entirely independent of this. What an extraordinary blindness! ~ Blaise Pascal,

1004:Thus so wretched is man that he would weary even without any cause for weariness... and so frivolous is he that, though full of a thousand reasons for weariness, the least thing, such as playing billiards or hitting a ball, is sufficient enough to amuse him. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1005:Cold words freeze people, and hot words scorch them, and bitter words make them bitter, and wrathful words make them wrathful. Kind words also produce their own image on men's souls; and a beautiful image it is. They smooth, and quiet, and comfort the hearer. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1006: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? ~ Blaise Pascal,

1007: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? ~ Blaise Pascal,

1008:The word ‘enemy’ is therefore ambiguous, but if he says elsewhere, as he does, that he will deliver his people from their sins,1 as do Isaiah2 and others, the ambiguity is removed, and the double meaning of enemies reduced to the single meaning of iniquities. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1009:As Blaise Pascal put it in his famous wager: “You have to wager. It is not up to you, you are already committed.”7 You can’t not bet your life on something. You can’t not be headed somewhere. We live leaning forward, bent on arriving at the place we long for. ~ James K A Smith,

1010:Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true. The cure for this is first to show that religion is not contrary to reason, but worthy of reverence and respect. Next make it attractive, make good men wish it were true and then show that it is. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1011:This is how the whole of our life slips by. We seek repose by battling against certain obstacles, and once they are overcome we find rest is unbearable because of the boredom it generates. ... We can't imaging a condition that is pleasant without fun and noise. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1012:Thus so wretched is man that he would weary even without any cause for weariness... and so frivolous is he that, though full of a thousand reasons for weariness, the least thing, such as playing billiards or hitting a ball, is sufficient enough to amuse him.    ~ Blaise Pascal,

1013:Il n'y a que deux sortes d'hommes: les uns justes, qui se croient pe cheurs; les autres pe cheurs, qui se croient justes. There are only two types of people: the virtuous who believe themselves to be sinners and the sinners who believe themselves to be virtuous. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1014:The greatness of man is so evident that it is even proved by his wretchedness. For what in animals is nature, we call in man wretchedness--by which we recognize that, his nature being now like that of animals, he has fallen from a better nature which once was his. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1015:Whilst in speaking of human things, we say that it is necessary to know them before we love can them. The saints on the contrary say in speaking of divine things that it is necessary to love them in order to know them, and that we only enter truth through charity. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1016:Kind words produce their own image in men's souls; and a beautiful image it is. They soothe and quiet and comfort the hearer. They shame him out of his sour, morose, unkind feelings. We have not yet begun to use kind words in such abundance as they ought to be used. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1017:There is a renewed interest in myth, in part because we feel that, as Blaise Pascal noted, "we wander in times which are not ours," or we share Hamlet's sense that "the time is out of joint," or agree with Rilke that "we are not much at home in the world we have created. ~ J Hollis,

1018:What matters it that man should have a little more knowledge of the universe? If he has it, he gets little higher. Is he not always infinitely removed from the end, and is not the duration of our life equally removed from eternity, even if it lasts ten years longer? ~ Blaise Pascal,

1019:When I have occasionally set myself to consider the different distractions of men, the pains and perils to which they expose themselves I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1020:I feel that it is possible that I might never have existed, for my self consists in thought; therefore I who think would never have been if my mother had been killed before I had come to life; therefore I am not a necessary being. I am not eternal or infinite either… ~ Blaise Pascal,

1021:When a natural discourse paints a passion or an effect, one feels within oneself the truth of what one reads, which was there before, although one did not know it. Hence one is inclined to love him who makes us feel it, for he has not shown us his own riches, but ours. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1022:There are only three types of people; those who have found God and serve him; those who have not found God and seek him, and those who live not seeking, or finding him. The first are rational and happy; the second unhappy and rational, and the third foolish and unhappy. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1023:We do not content ourselves with the life we have in ourselves and in our being; we desire to live an imaginary life in the mind of others, and for this purpose we endeavor to shine. We labor unceasingly to adorn and preserve this imaginary existence and neglect the real. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1024:No one is offended at not seeing everything; but one does not like to be mistaken, and that perhaps arises from the fact that man naturally cannot see everything, and that naturally he cannot err in the side he looks at, since the perceptions of our senses are always true. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1025:[77] Pride. Curiosity is only vanity. We usually only want to know something so that we can talk about it; in other words, we would never travel by sea if it meant never talking about it, and for the sheer pleasure of seeing things we could never hope to describe to others. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1026:One has followed the other in an endless circle, for it is certain that as man's insight increases so he finds both wretchedness and greatness within himself. In a word man knows he is wretched. Thus he is wretched because he is so, but he is truly great because he knows it. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1027:How can anyone lose who chooses to become a Christian? If, when he dies, there turns out to be no God and his faith was in vain, he has lost nothing...If, however, there is a God and a heaven and a hell. then he has gained heaven and his skeptical friends have lost everything. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1028: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1029:We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end. When we think to attach ourselves to any pointand to fasten to it, it wavers and leaves us; and if we follow it, it eludes our grasp, slips past us, and vanishes for ever. Nothing stays for us. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1030:What use is it to us to hear it said of a man that he has thrown off the yoke that he does not believe there is a God to watch over his actions, that he reckons himself the sole master of his behavior, and that he does not intend to give an account of it to anyone but himself? ~ Blaise Pascal,

1031:A good portrait can only be made by reconciling all our contradictory features, and it is not enough to follow through a series of mutually compatible qualities without reconciling their opposites; to understand an author’s meaning all contradictory passages must be reconciled. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1032:No other religion has proposed that we should hate ourselves. No other religion therefore can please those who hate themselves and seek a being who is really worthy of love. And if they had never [before] heard of the religion of a humiliated God, they would at once embrace it. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1033:Since [man] is infinitely removed from comprehending the extremes, the end of things and their beginning are hopelessly hidden from him in an impenetrable secret; he is equally incapable of seeing the nothing from which he was made, and the infinite in which he is swallowed up. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1034:Therefore, those to whom God has imparted religion by intuition are very fortunate and justly convinced. But to those who do not have it, we can give it only by reasoning, waiting for God to give them spiritual insight, without which faith is only human and useless for salvation. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1035:Man is nothing but insincerity, falsehood, and hypocrisy, both in regard to himself and in regard to others. He does not wish that he should be told the truth, he shuns saying it to others; and all these moods, so inconsistent with justice and reason, have their roots in his heart. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1036:Undoubtedly equality of goods is just; but, being unable to cause might to obey justice, men has made it just to obey might. Unable to strengthen justice, they have justified might--so that the just and the strong should unite, and there should be peace, which is the sovereign good. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1037:For it is far better to know something about everything than to know all about one thing. This universality is the best. If we can have both, still better; but if we must choose, we ought to choose the former. And the world feels this and does so; for the world is often a good judge. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1038:Parents fear the destruction of natural affection in their children. What is this natural principle so liable to decay? Habit is a second nature, which destroys the first. Why is not custom nature? I suspect that this nature itself is but a first custom, as custom is a second nature. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1039:Pride counterbalances all our miseries, for it either hides them, or, if it discloses them, boasts of that disclosure. Pride has such a thorough possession of us, even in the midst of our miseries and faults, that we are prepared to sacrifice life with joy, if it may but be talked of. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1040:If a man loves a woman for her beauty, does he love her? No; for the smallpox, which destroys her beauty without killing her, causes his love to cease. And if any one loves me for my judgment or my memory, does he really love me? No; for I can lose these qualities without ceasing to be. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1041:[Unbelievers] think they have made great efforts to get at the truth when they have spent a few hours in reading some book out of Holy Scripture, and have questioned some cleric about the truths of the faith. After that, they boast that they have searched in books and among men in vain. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1042:En un mot, l'homme conna|"t qu'il est mise rable: il est donc mise rable, puisqu'il l'est; mais il est bien grand, puisqu'il le conna|"t. In one word, man knows that he is miserable and therefore he is miserable because he knows it; but he is also worthy, because he knows his condition. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1043:Let man reawake and consider what he is compared with the reality of things; regard himself lost in this remote corner of Nature; and from the tiny cell where he lodges, to wit the Universe, weigh at their true worth earth, kingdoms, towns, himself. What is a man face to face with infinity? ~ Blaise Pascal,

1044:What a chimaera then is man, what a novelty, what a monster, what chaos, what a subject of contradiction, what a prodigy! Judge of all things, yet an imbecile earthworm; depository of truth, yet a sewer of uncertainty and error; pride and refuse of the universe. Who shall resolve this tangle? ~ Blaise Pascal,

1045:There are two types of mind . . . the mathematical, and what might be called the intuitive. The former arrives at its views slowly, but they are firm and rigid; the latter is endowed with greater flexibility and applies itself simultaneously to the diverse lovable parts of that which it loves. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1046:You gave me health that I might serve you; and so often I failed to use my good health in your service. Now you send me sickness in order to correct me Grant that, having ignored the things of spirit when my body was vigorous, I may now enjoy spiritual sweetness while my body groans with pain. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1047:[172] The way of God, who disposes all things with gentleness, is to instil religion into our minds with reasoned arguments and into our hearts with grace, but attempting to instil it into hearts and minds with force and threats is to instil not religion but terror. Terror rather than religion. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1048:[Christianity] endeavors equally to establish these two things: that God has set up in the Church visible signs to make himself known to those who should seek him sincerely, and that he has nevertheless so disguised them that he will only be perceived by those who seek him with all their heart. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1049:Imagine a number of men in chains, all under sentence of death, some of whom are each day butchered in the sight of others those remaining see their own condition in that of their fellows, and looking at each other with grief and despair await their turn. This is an image of the human condition. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1050:The Stoics say, "Retire within yourselves; it is there you will find your rest." And that is not true. Others say, "Go out of yourselves; seek happiness in amusement." And this is not true. Illness comes. Happiness is neither without us nor within us. It is in God, both without us and within us. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1051:Nous ne nous tenons jamais au présent. Nous anticipons l’avenir comme trop lent à venir, comme pour hâter son cours ; ou nous rappelons le passé, pour l’arrêter comme trop prompt. Si imprudents que nous errons dans les temps qui ne sont pas nôtres et ne pensons point au seul qui nous appartient ! ~ Blaise Pascal,

1052:Our imagination so magnifies the present, because we are continually thinking about it, and so reduces eternity, because we do not think about it, that we turn eternity into nothing and nothing into eternity, and all this is so strongly rooted within us that all our reason cannot save us from it. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1053:The Stoics say, " Retire within yourselves; it is there you will find your rest." And that is not true. Others say, "Go out of yourselves; seek happiness in amusement." And this is not true. Illness comes. Happiness is neither without us nor within us. It is in God, both without us and within us. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1054:Circumcision of the heart, true fasting, true sacrifice, true temple;2 the prophets showed that all this must be spiritual. Not the flesh that perishes, but that which does not perish.3 ‘Ye shall be free indeed.’4 So the other freedom is just a figurative freedom. ‘I am the true bread from heaven.’5 ~ Blaise Pascal,

1055:God alone is man's true good, and since man abandoned him it is a strange fact that nothing in nature has been found to take his place...Since losing his true good, man is capable of seeing it in anything, even his own destruction, although it is so contrary at once to God, to reason, and to nature. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1056:[172] The way of God, who disposes all things with gentleness, is to instil religion into our minds with reasoned arguments and into our hearts with grace, but attempting to instil it into hearts and minds with force and threats is to instil not religion but terror. Terror rather than religion. (185) ~ Blaise Pascal,

1057:For, not seeing the whole truth, they could not attain to perfect virtue. Some considering nature as incorrupt, others as incurable, they could not escape either pride or sloth, the two sources of all vice; since they cannot but either abandon themselves to it through cowardice, or escape it by pride. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1058: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1059: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1060:Let us imagine a number of men in chains and all condemned to death, where some are killed each day in the sight of the others, and those who remain see their own fate in that of their fellows and wait their turn, looking at each other sorrowfully and without hope. It is an image of the condition of man. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1061:Those who profess contempt for men, and put them on a level with beasts, yet wish to be admired and believed by men, and contradict themselves by their own feelings--their nature, which is stronger than all, convincing them of the greatness of man more forcibly than reason convinces them of his baseness. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1062:The prophets clearly said that Israel would always be beloved of God and that the law would be everlasting, and they also said that none would understand their meaning, but that it was veiled. How highly then should we esteem those who break the cipher for us and teach us to understand the hidden meaning, ~ Blaise Pascal,

1063:St. Augustine teaches us that there is in each man a Serpent, an Eve, and an Adam. Our senses and natural propensities are the Serpent; the excitable desire is the Eve; and reason is the Adam. Our nature tempts us perpetually; criminal desire is often excited; but sin is not completed till reason consents. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1064:We think very little of time present; we anticipate the future, as being too slow, and with a view to hasten it onward, we recall the past to stay it as too swiftly gone. We are so thoughtless, that we thus wander through the hours which are not here, regardless only of the moment that is actually our own. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1065:Evil is easily discovered; there is an infinite variety; good is almost unique. But some kinds of evil are almost as difficult to discover as that which we call good; and often particular evil of this class passes for good. It needs even a certain greatness of soul to attain to this, as to that which is good. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1066:To speak freely of mathematics, I find it the highest exercise of the spirit; but at the same time I know that it is so useless that I make little distinction between a man who is only a mathematician and a common artisan. Also, I call it the most beautiful profession in the world; but it is only a profession. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1067:Let man then contemplate the whole of nature in her full and grand majesty... No idea approaches it. We may enlarge our conceptions beyond all imaginable space; we only produce atoms in comparison with the reality of things. It is an infinite sphere, the center of which is everywhere, the circumference nowhere. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1068:Let us imagine a number of men in chains, and all condemned to death, where some are slaughtered each day in the sight of the others, and those who remain see their own fate in that of their fellows, and wait their turn, looking at each other sorrowfully and without hope. It is an image of the condition of men. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1069:I am in the utmost perplexity, yand have wished a hundred times, that if there is a A God, nature would manifest him without ambiguity, and that if there is not, every imaginary sign of his existence might vanish : in short, let nature speak distinctly, or be totally silent, and I shall know what course to take. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1070: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1071:There is change and succession in all things.’ ‘You are wrong, there is …’ ‘Why, do you not say yourself that the sky and the birds prove God?’ – ‘No.’ – ‘Does your religion not say so?’ – ‘No. For though it is true in a sense for some souls whom God has enlightened in this way, yet it is untrue for the majority. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1072:All great amusements are dangerous to the Christian life; but among all those which the world has invented there is none more to be feared than the theater. It is a representation of the passions so natural and so delicate that it excites them and gives birth to them in our hearts, and, above all, to that of love. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1073:Aphorisms are short, pithy sayings; they are individual passages that can be recited and remain intelligible out of context; they can stand on their own without further support. ~ Dr. Louis Groarke, Canadian philosopher. Philosophy as Inspiration: Blaise Pascal and the Epistemology of Aphorisms. Essay in, Poetics Today, Fall 2007,

1074:God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and scholars...Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy...'This is life eternal that they might know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.' Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ...May I not fall from him forever...I will not forget your word. Amen. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1075: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1076:There is nothing so insupportable to man as to be in entire repose, without passion, occupation, amusement, or application. Then it is that he feels his own nothingness, isolation, insignificance, dependent nature, powerless, emptiness. Immediately there issue from his soul ennui, sadness, chagrin, vexation, despair. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1077:Do they think that they have given us great pleasure by telling us that they hold our soul to be no more than wind or smoke, and saying it moreover in tones of pride and satisfaction? Is this then something to be said gaily? Is it not on the contrary something to be said sadly, as being the saddest thing in the world? ~ Blaise Pascal,

1078:That is why those to whom God has given religious faith by moving their hearts are very fortunate, and feel quite legitimately convinced, but to those who do not have it we can only give such faith through reasoning, until God gives it by moving their heart, without which faith is only human and useless for salvation. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1079:There is no denying it; one must admit that there is something astonishing about Christianity. 'It is because you were born in it,' they will say. Far from it; I stiffen myself against it for that very reason, for fear of being corrupted by prejudice. But, though I was born in it, I cannot help finding it astonishing. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1080:There are two excesses: to exclude reason, to admit nothing but reason. The supreme achievement of reason is to realise that there is a limit to reason. Reason's last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it. It is merely feeble if it does not go as far as to realise that. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1081:If we dreamed the same thing every night, it would affect us much as the objects we see every day. And if a common workman were sure to dream every night for twelve hours that he was a king, I believe he would be almost as happy as a king who should dream every night for twelve hours on end that he was a common workman. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1082:For after all, what is man in creation? Is he not a mere cipher compared with the infinite, a whole compared to the nothing, a mean between zero & all, infinitely remote from understanding of either extreme? Who can follow these astonishing processes? The Author of these wonders understands them, but no one else can. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1083:All the dignity of man consists in thought. Thought is therefore by its nature a wonderful and incomparable thing. It must have strange defects to be contemptible. But it has such, so that nothing is more ridiculous. How great it is in its nature! How vile it is in its defects! But what is this thought? How foolish it is! ~ Blaise Pascal,

1084:Do they profess to have delighted us by telling us that they hold our soul to be only a little wind and smoke, especially by telling us this in a haughty and self-satisfied tone of voice? Is this a thing to say gaily? Is it not, on the contrary, a thing to say sadly, as the saddest thing in the world? ~ Blaise Pascal, Pensées (1669), 194,

1085:It is certain that those who have the living faith in their hearts see at once that all existence is none other than the work of the God whom they adore. But for those in whom this light is extinguished, [if we were to show them our proofs of the existence of God] nothing is more calculated to arouse their contempt. . . . ~ Blaise Pascal,

1086:Let them at least learn what is the religion they attack, before attacking it. If this religion boasted of having a clear view of God, and of possessing it open and unveiled, it would be attacking it to say that we see nothing in the world which shows it with this clearness. But since, on the contrary, it says that men are ~ Blaise Pascal,

1087:With all due respect to Israel’s primo king, David and I are not on the same page here. I’m more with the seventeenth-century philosopher Blaise Pascal, who lived when modern science was coming into its own, and who had public nervous breakdowns in his Pensées such as: “The eternal silence of these infinite spaces terrifies me. ~ Peter Enns,

1088:We do not rest satisfied with the present.... So imprudent we are that we wander in the times which are not ours and do not thinkof the only one which belongs to us; and so idle are we that we dream of those times which are no more and thoughtlessly overlook that which alone exists. For the present is generally painful to us. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1089:What then is to become of man? Will he be the equal of god or the beasts? What a terrifying distance! What then shall he be? Who cannot see from all this that man is lost, that he has fallen from his place, that he anxiously seeks it, and cannot find it again? And who then is to direct him there? The greatest men have failed. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1090:There is a lot of difference between tempting and leading into error. God tempts but does not lead into error. To tempt is to provide opportunities for us to do certain things if we do not love God, but putting us under no necessity to do so. To lead into error is to compel a man necessarily to conclude and follow a falsehood. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1091:We know then the existence and nature of the finite, because we also are finite and have extension. We know the existence of the infinite and are ignorant of its nature, because it has extension like us, but not limits like us. But we know neither the existence nor the nature of God, because he has neither extension nor limits. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1092:Since we cannot be universal and know all that is to be known of everything, we ought to know a little about everything. For it is far better to know something about everything than to know all about one thing. This universality is the best. If we can have both, still better; but if we must choose, we ought to choose the former. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1093:The brutes do not admire each other. A horse does not admire his companion. Not that there is no rivalry between them in a race, but that is of no consequence; for, when in the stable, the heaviest and most ill-formed does not give up his oats to another as men would have others do to them. Their virtue is satisfied with itself. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1094:There is internal war in man between reason and the passions. If he had only reason without passions ... If he had only passions without reason ... But having both, he cannot be without strife, being unable to be at peace with the one without being at war with the other. Thus he is always divided against, and opposed to himself. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1095:Power rules the world, not opinion, but it is opinion that exploits power. It is power that makes opinion. To be easygoing can be a fine thing according to our opinion. Why? Because anyone who wants to dance the tightrope will be alone, and I can get together a stronger body of people to say there is nothing fine about it. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1096:Human life is thus only a perpetual illusion; men deceive and flatter each other. No one speaks of us in our presence as he does of us in our absence. Human society is founded on mutual deceit; few friendships would endure if each knew what his friend said of him in his absence, although he then spoke in sincerity and without passion. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1097:It is of dangerous consequence to represent to man how near he is to the level of beasts, without showing him at the same time his greatness. It is likewise dangerous to let him see his greatness without his meanness. It is more dangerous yet to leave him ignorant of either; but very beneficial that he should be made sensible of both. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1098:We need not have the loftiest mind to understand that here is no lasting and real satisfaction, that our pleasures are only vanity, that our evils are infinite, and, lastly, that death, which threatens us every moment, must infallibly place us within a few years under the dreadful necessity of being forever either annihilated or unhappy. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1099:The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing. We feel it in a thousand things. I say that the heart naturally loves the Universal Being, and naturally loves itself; and it gives itself to one or the other, and hardens itself against one or the other, as it chooses...it is the heart that feels God, not the reason; this is faith. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1100:On the occasions when I have pondered over men's various activities, the dangers and worries they are exposed to at Court or at war, from which so many quarrels, passions, risky, often ill-conceived actions and so on are born, I have often said that man's unhappiness springs from one thing alone, his incapacity to stay quietly in one room. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1101:There are only three kinds of people: Those who have found God and serve Him; those who are busy seeking God, but have not yet found Him; and those who spend their lives without either seeking or finding Him. The first are reasonable and happy; the last are foolish and unhappy; and the middle group are those who are unhappy but reasonable. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1102:If we let ourselves believe that man began with divine grace, that he forfeited this by sin, and that he can be redeemed only by divine grace through the crucified Christ, then we shall find peace of mind never granted to philosophers. He who cannot believe is cursed, for he reveals by his unbelief that God has not chosen to give him grace. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1103:Intuitive minds, on the contrary, being thus accustomed to judge at a single glance, are so astonished when they are presented with propositions of which they understand nothing, and the way to which is through definitions and axioms so sterile, and which they are not accustomed to see thus in detail, that they are repelled and disheartened. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1104:According to the doctrine of chance, you ought to put yourself to the trouble of searching for the truth; for if you die without worshiping the True Cause, you are lost. "But," say you, "if He had wished me to worship Him, He would have left me signs of His will." He has done so; but you neglect them. Seek them, therefore; it is well worth it. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1105:This religion so great in miracles, in men holy, pure and irreproachable, in scholars, great witnesses and martyrs, established kings - David - Isaiah, a prince of the blood; so great in knowledge, after displaying all its miracles and all its wisdom, rejects it all and says that it offers neither wisdom nor signs, but only the Cross and folly. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1106:It is dangerous to tell the people that the laws are unjust; for they obey them only because they think them just. Therefore it isnecessary to tell them at the same time that they must obey them because they are laws, just as they must obey superiors, not because they are just, but because they are superiors. In this way all sedition is prevented. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1107:Our imagination so magnifies this present existence, by the power of continual reflection on it, and so attenuates eternity, by not thinking of it at all, that we reduce an eternity to nothingness, and expand a mere nothing to an eternity; and this habit is so inveterately rooted in us that all the force of reason cannot induce us to lay it aside. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1108:Vanity is so firmly anchored in man's heart that a soldier, a camp follower, a cook or a porter will boast and expect admirers, and even philosophers want them; those who write against them want to enjoy the prestige of having written well, those who read them want the prestige of having read them, and perhaps I who write this want the same thing. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1109:Hence it comes that men so much love noise and stir; hence it comes that the prison is so horrible a punishment; hence it comes that the pleasure of solitude is a thing incomprehensible. And it is in fact the greatest source of happiness in the condition of kings, that men try incessantly to divert them, and to procure for them all kinds of pleasures. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1110: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1111:Atheists. What grounds have they for saying that no one can rise from the dead? Which is harder, to be born or to rise again? That what has never been should be, or that what has been should be once more? Is it harder to come into existence than to come back? Habit makes us find the one easy, while lack of habit makes us find the other impossible. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1112:Nature constantly begins the same things over again, years, days, hours, spaces too. And numbers run end to end, one after another. This makes something in a way infinite and eternal. It is not that any of this is really infinite and eternal, but these finite entities multiply infinitely. Thus only number, which multiplies them, seems to me to be infinite. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1113:Our senses perceive no extreme. Too much sound deafens us; too much light dazzles us; too great distance or proximity hinders ourview. Too great length and too great brevity of discourse tends to obscurity; too much truth is paralyzing.... In short, extremes are for us as though they were not, and we are not within their notice. They escape us, or we them. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1114:There is a virtuous fear, which is the effect of faith; and there is a vicious fear, which is the product of doubt. The former leads to hope, as relying on God, in whom we believe; the latter inclines to despair, as not relying on God, in whom we do not believe. Persons of the one character fear to lose God; persons of the other character fear to find Him. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1115:I didn't much believe in god and the things people labeled as miracles did little to convince me otherwise, but it was at times like these that made me consider which was the more cruel: a cold and random universe or a god with a perverse sense of humor? With all due respect to Blaise Pascal, I chose to believe that no god was better than a cruel one. ~ Reed Farrel Coleman,

1116:Man is so great that his greatness appears even in the consciousness of his misery. A tree does not know itself to be miserable. It is true that it is misery indeed to know one's self to be miserable; but then it is greatness also. In this way, all man's miseries go to prove his greatness. They are the miseries of a mighty potentate, of a dethroned monarch. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1117:I see the terrifying spaces of the universe that enclose me, and I find myself attached to a corner of this vast expanse, without knowing why I am more in this place than in another, nor why this little time that is given me to live is assigned me at this point more than another out of all the eternity that has preceded me and out of all that will follow me. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1118:Nothing is so insufferable to man as to be completely at rest, without passions, without business, without diversion, without study. He then feels his nothingness, his forlornness, his insufficiency, his dependence, his weakness, his emptiness. There will immediately arise from the depth of his heart weariness, gloom, sadness, fretfulness, vexation, despair. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1119:The God of Christians is a God of love and comfort, a God who fills the soul and heart of those whom he possesses, a God who makes them conscious of their inward wretchedness, and his infinite mercy; who unites himself to their inmost soul, who fills it with humility and joy, with confidence and love, who renders them incapable of any other end than himself. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1120:I do not admire the excess of a virtue as of valour, except I see at the same time the excess of the opposite virtue, as in Epaminondas, who had the greatest valour and the greatest kindness. For otherwise it is not to rise, it is to fall. We do not display greatness by going to one extreme, but in touching both at once, and filling all the intervening space. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1121:When a natural discourse paints a passion or an effect, one feels within oneself the truth of what one reads, which was there before, although one did not know it. Hence one is inclined to love him who makes us feel it, for he has not shown us his own riches, but ours. ...such community of intellect that we have with him necessarily inclines the heart to love. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1122:As we speak of poetical beauty, so ought we to speak of mathematical beauty and medical beauty. But we do not do so; and that reason is that we know well what is the object of mathematics, and that it consists in proofs, and what is the object of medicine, and that it consists in healing. But we do not know in what grace consists, which is the object of poetry. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1123:« La vanité est si ancrée dans le cœur de l’homme qu’un soldat, un goujat, un cuisinier, un crocheteur se vante et veut avoir ses admirateurs ; et les philosophes mêmes en veulent. Et ceux qui écrivent contre veulent avoir la gloire d’avoir bien écrit ; et ceux qui lisent veulent avoir la gloire de l’avoir lu ; et moi qui écris ceci, ai peut-être cette envie ». ~ Blaise Pascal,

1124:[7] Letter showing the usefulness of proofs, by the Machine. Faith is different from proof. One is human and the other a gift of God. The just shall live by faith.1 This is the faith that God himself puts into our hearts, often using proof as the instrument. Faith cometh by hearing.2 But this faith is in our hearts, and makes us say not ‘I know’ but ‘I believe’. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1125:If they [Plato and Aristotle] wrote about politics it was as if to lay down rules for a madhouse. And if they pretended to treat it as something really important it was because they knew that the madmen they were talking to believed themselves to be kings and emperors. They humored these beliefs in order to calm down their madness with as little harm as possible. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1126:Knowledge has two extremes. The first is the pure natural ignorance in which all men find themselves at birth. The other extreme is that reached by great minds, who, having run through all that men can know, find they know nothing, and come back again to that same natural ignorance from which they set out; this is a learned ignorance which is conscious of itself. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1127:Let us then take our compass; we are something, and we are not everything. The nature of our existence hides from us the knowledge of first beginnings which are born of the Nothing; and the littleness of our being conceals from us the sight of the Infinite. Our intellect holds the same position in the world of thought as our body occupies in the expanse of nature. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1128:One says, "It is two hours ago"; the other says, "It is only three-quarters of an hour." I look at my watch, and say to the one, "You are weary," and to the other, "Time gallops with you"; for it is only an hour and a half ago, and I laugh at those who tell me that time goes slowly with me, and that I judge by imagination. They do not know that I judge by my watch. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1129:Let us, then, take our compass; we are something, and we are not everything. The nature of our existence hides from us the knowledge of first beginnings which are born of the nothing; and the littleness of our being conceals from us the sight of the infinite. Our intellect holds the same position in the world of thought as our body occupies in the expanse of nature. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1130:That queen, of error, whom we call fancy and opinion, is the more deceitful because she does not always deceive. She would be the infallible rule of truth if she were the infallible rule of falsehood; but being only most frequently in error, she gives no evidence of her real quality, for she marks with the same character both that which is true and that which is false. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1131:If they [Plato and Aristotle] wrote about politics it was as if to lay down rules for a madhouse. And if they pretended to treat it as something really important it was because they knew that the madmen they were talking to believed themselves to be kings and emperors. They humored these beliefs in order to calm down their madness with as little harm as possible. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1132:Porque, al fin, ¿qué es el hombre en la naturaleza? Una nada frente al infinito, un todo frente a la nada, un medio entre nada y todo. Infinitamente alejado de comprender los extremos, el fin de las cosas y su principio están para él invenciblemente ocultos en un secreto impenetrable, igualmente incapaz de ver la nada de donde ha salido y el infinito donde es absorbido. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1133:All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1134:The man who knows God but does not know his own misery, becomes proud. The man who knows his own misery but does not know God, ends in despair...the knowledge of Jesus Christ constitutes the middle course because in him we find both God and our own misery. Jesus Christ is therefore a God whom we approach without pride, and before whom we humble ourselves without despair. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1135:God's will has been to redeem men and open the way of salvation to those who seek it, but men have shown themselves so unworthy that it is right for God to refuse to some, for their hardness of heart, what he grants to others by a mercy they have not earned... 'There is enough light for those who desire only to see, and enough darkness for those of a contrary disposition. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1136:L'homme n'est qu'un roseau, le plus faible de la nature; mais c'est un roseau pensant. Il ne faut pas que l'univers entier s'arme pour l'éraser: un vapeur, un goutte d'eau suffit pout le tuer. Mais, quand l'univers l'écraserait, l'homme serait encore plus noble que ce qui le tue, pare qu'il sait qu'il meurt, et l'avantage que l'univers a sur lui, l'univers n'en sait rien. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1137:Il y a deux sortes d'esprits, l'un ge ome trique, et l'autre que l'on peut appeler de finesse. Le premier a des vues lentes, dures et inflexibles; mais le dernier a une souplesse de pense e. There are two kinds of mind, one mathematical, the other what one might call the intuitive. The first takes a slow, firm, inflexible view, but the latter has flexibility of thought. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1138:Man is full of desires: he loves only those who can satisfy them all. "This man is a good mathematician," someone will say. But I have no concern for mathematics; he would take me for a proposition. "That one is a good soldier." He would take me for a besieged town. I need, that is to say, a decent man who can accommodate himself to all my desires in a general sort of way. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1139:Order. Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true. The cure for this is first to show that religion is not contrary to reason, but worthy of reverence and respect. Next make it attractive, make good men wish it were true, and then show that it is. Worthy of reverence because it really understands human nature. Attractive because it promises true good. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1140:We almost never think of the present, and it we do think of it, it is only to see what light it throws on our plans for the future. The present is never our end. The past and present are out means, the future alone our end. Thus we never actually live, but hope to live, and since we are always planning how to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so. (Page 10) ~ Blaise Pascal,

1141: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. We should therefore act as if we were alone, and in that case should we build fine houses, etc.? 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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1142:I have made this [letter] longer, because I have not had the time to make it shorter. ~ Blaise Pascal, "Lettres provinciales", letter 16 (1657). Translated as "The present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter" in Pensées, The Provincial Letters, provincial letter 16 (1941), p. 571, as reported in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1989).,

1143:It is absurd of us to rely on the company of our fellows, as wretched and helpless as we are; they will not help us; we shall die alone. We must act then as if we were alone. If that were so, would we build superb houses, etc.? We should unhesitatingly look for the truth. And, if we refuse, it shows that we have a higher regard for men's esteem than for pursuing the truth. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1144:Let no one say that I have said nothing new; the arrangement of the material is new. In playing tennis both players use the same ball, but one plays it better. I would just as soon be told that I have used old words. As if the same thoughts did not form a different argument by being differently arranged, just as the same words make different thoughts when arranged differently! ~ Blaise Pascal,

1145:Porque, finalmente, ¿qué es el hombre en la naturaleza? Una nada frente al infinito, un todo frente a la nada, un medio entre nada y todo. Infinitamente alejado de comprender los extremos, el fin de las cosas y su principio le están invenciblemente ocultos en un secreto impenetrable, igualmente incapaz de ver la nada de dónde ha sido sacado y el infinito en que se halla sumido ~ Blaise Pascal,

1146:Sneezing absorbs all the functions of the soul just as much as the [sexual] act, but we do not draw from it the same conclusions against the greatness of man, because it is involuntary; although we bring it about, we do so involuntarily. It is not for the sake of the thing in itself but for another end, and is therefore not a sign of man's weakness, or his subjection to this act. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1147:Vanity is so anchored in the heart of man that a soldier, a soldier's servant, a cook, a porter brags and wishes to have his admirers. Even philosophers wish for them. Those who write against vanity want to have the glory of having written well; and those who read it desire the glory of having read it. I who write this have perhaps this desire, and perhaps those who will read it. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1148:This philosopher named Blaise Pascal said that if you have a choice of believing in God or not believing in God, it's a better gamble to believe. Because if you believe in God and you're wrong—well, nothing happens. You just die into the nothingness of the universe. But if you don't believe in God and you're wrong, then you go to hell for eternity, at least according to some folks. ~ Allen Eskens,

1149:Those who are accustomed to judge by feeling do not understand the process of reasoning, because they want to comprehend at a glance and are not used to seeking for first principles. Those, on the other hand, who are accustomed to reason from first principles do not understand matters of feeling at all, because they look for first principles and are unable to comprehend at a glance. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1150:All men seek happiness. There are no exceptions. However different the means they may employ, they all strive towards this goal. The reason why some go to war and some do not is the same desire in both, but interpreted in two different ways. The will never takes the least step except to that end. This is the motive of every act of every man, including those who go and hang themselves. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1151:Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed. There is no need for the whole universe to take up arms to crush him: a vapour, a drop of water is enough to kill him. but even if the universe were to crush him, man would still be nobler than his slayer, because he knows that he is dying and the advantage the universe has over him. The universe knows none of this. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1152: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1153:The only thing that consoles us for our miseries is diversion. And yet it is the greatest of our miseries. For it is that above all which prevents us thinking about ourselves and leads is imperceptibly to destruction. But for that we should be bored, and boredom would drive us to seek some more solid means of escape, but diversion passes our time and brings us imperceptibly to our death. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1154:To be human is to be on a quest. To live is to be embarked on a kind of unconscious journey toward a destination of your dreams. As Blaise Pascal put it in his famous wager: “You have to wager. It is not up to you, you are already committed.”7 You can’t not bet your life on something. You can’t not be headed somewhere. We live leaning forward, bent on arriving at the place we long for. ~ James K A Smith,

1155:[92] Cause and effect. It is then true to say that everyone is the victim of illusion, because the ordinary person’s opinions are sound without being intellectually so, for he believes truth to be where it is not. There is certainly some truth in these opinions, but not as much as people imagine. It is true that we should honour the gentry but not because gentle birth is a real advantage. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1156:The mind of the greatest man on earth is not so independent of circumstances as not to feel inconvenienced by the merest buzzing noise about him; it does not need the report of a cannon to disturb his thoughts. The creaking of a vane or a pully is quite enough. Do not wonder that he reasons ill just now; a fly is buzzing by his ear; it is quite enough to unfit him for giving good counsel. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1157:Compare not thyself with others, but with Me. If thou dost not find Me in those with whom thou comparest thyself, thou comparest thyself to one who is abominable. If thou findest Me in them, compare thyself to Me. But whom wilt thou compare? Thyself, or Me in thee? If it is thyself, it is one who is abominable. If it is I, thou comparest Me to Myself. Now I am God in all. ~ Blaise Pascal, Pensées (1669), § 554,

1158:When we do not know the truth of a thing, it is good that there should exist a common error which determines the mind of man, as, for example, the moon, to which is attributed the change of seasons, the progress of diseases, etc. For the chief malady of man is a restless curiosity about things which he cannot understand; and it is not so bad for him to be in error as to be curious to no purpose. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1159: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1160:For after all what is man in nature? A nothing in relation to infinity, all in relation to nothing, a central point between nothing and all and infinitely far from understanding either. The ends of things and their beginnings are impregnably concealed from him in an impenetrable secret. He is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness out of which he was drawn and the infinite in which he is engulfed. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1161:There are two ways of persuading men of the truths of our religion; one by the power of reason, the other by the authority of the speaker. We do not use the latter but the former. We do not say: 'You must believe that because Scripture, which says it, is divine,' but we say that it must be believed for such and such a reason. But these are feeble arguments, because reason can be bent in any direction. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1162:There are three means of believing--by inspiration, by reason, and by custom. Christianity, which is the only rational institution, does yet admit none for its sons who do not believe by inspiration. Nor does it injure reason or custom, or debar them of their proper force; on the contrary, it directs us to open our minds by the proofs of the former, and to confirm our minds by the authority of the latter. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1163:There is a certain standard of grace and beauty which consists in a certain relation between our nature, such as it is, weak or strong, and the thing which pleases us. Whatever is formed according to this standard pleases us, be it house, song, discourse, verse, prose, woman, birds, rivers, trees, room, dress, and so on. Whatever is not made according to this standard displeases those who have good taste. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1164:Que chacun examine ses pensées ; il les trouvera toujours occupées au passé et à l’avenir. Nous ne pensons presque point au temps présent ; et si nous y pensons, ce n’est que pour en prendre la lumière pour disposer de l’avenir. Le présent n’est jamais notre fin ; le passé et le présent sont nos moyens ; le seul avenir est notre fin. Ainsi nous ne vivons jamais ; mais nous espérons vivre ( pensées ) ~ Blaise Pascal,

1165:Where then is this self, if it is neither in the body nor the soul? And how can one love the body or the soul except for the sake of such qualities, which are not what makes up the self, since they are perishable? Would we love the substance of a person’s soul, in the abstract, whatever qualities might be in it? That is not possible, and it would be wrong. Therefore we never love anyone, but only qualities. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1166:Les hommes ont mépris pour la religion. Ils en ont haine et peur qu’elle soit vraie. Pour guérir cela il faut commencer par montrer que la religion n’est point contraire à la raison. Vénérable, en donner respect. La rendre ensuite aimable, faire souhaiter aux bons qu’elle fut vraie et puis montrer qu’elle est vraie. Vénérable parce qu’elle a bien connu l’homme. Aimable parce qu’elle promet le vrai bien. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1167:For, after all, what is man in nature? ...a middle point between all and nothing...What else can he do, then, but perceive some semblance of the middle of things, eternally hopeless of knowing either their principles or their end? All things have come out of nothingness and are carried onwards to infinity. Who can follow these astonishing processes? The author of these wonders understands them: no one else can. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1168:The infinite distance between body and mind symbolizes the infinitely more infinite distance between mind and charity, for charity is supernatural. ...Out of all bodies together we could not succeed in creating one little thought. It is impossible, and of a different order. Out of all bodies and minds we could not extract one impulse of true charity. It is impossible, and of a different, supernatural, order. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1169:For after all what is man in nature? A nothing in relation to infinity, all in relation to nothing, a central point between nothing and all and infinitely far from understanding either. The ends of things and their beginnings are impregnably concealed from him in an impenetrable secret. He is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness out of which he was drawn and the infinite in which he is engulfed. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1170:FEU. Dieu d'Abraham, Dieu d'Isaac, Dieu de Jacob, non des philosophes et savants. Certitude. Certitude. Sentiment. Joie. Paix. ~ FIRE. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and scholars. Certainty. Certainty. Feeling. Joy. Peace. ~ Blaise Pascal, Note on a parchment stitched to the lining of Pascal's coat, found by a servant shortly after his death, as quoted in Burkitt Speculum religionis (1929), p. 150,

1171: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1172:By a peculiar prerogative, not only each individual is making daily advances in the sciences, and may make advances in morality (which is the science, by way of eminence, of living well and being happy), but all mankind together is making a continual progress in proportion as the universe grows older. So that the whole human race, during the course of so many ages, may be considered as one man who never ceases to live and learn. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1173:As we cannot be universal by knowing everything there is to know about everything, we must know a little about everything, because it is much better to know something about everything than everything about something. Such universality is the finest. It would be still better if we could have both together, but, if a choice must be made, this is the one to choose. The world knows this and does so, for the world is often a good judge. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1174:The will is one of the chief organs of belief, not because it creates belief, but because things are true or false according to the aspect by which we judge them. When the will likes one aspect more than another, it deflects the mind from considering the qualities of the one it does not care to see. Thus the mind, keeping in step with the will, remains looking at the aspect preferred by the will and so judges by what it sees there. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1175:Truly it is an evil to be full of faults; but it is a still greater evil to be full of them, and to be unwilling to recognise them, since that is to add the further fault of a voluntary illusion. We do not like others to deceive us; we do not think it fair that they should be held in higher esteem by us than they deserve; it is not then fair that we should deceive them, and should wish them to esteem us more highly than we deserve. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1176:It is dangerous to explain too clearly to man how like he is to the animals without pointing out his greatness. It is also dangerous to make too much of his greatness without his vileness. It is still more dangerous to leave him in ignorance of both, but it is most valuable to represent both to him. Man must not be allowed to believe that he is equal either to animals or to angels, nor to be unaware of either, but he must know both. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1177:The difference between the mathematical and the intuitive mind. [1]—In the one the principles are palpable, but removed from ordinary use; so that for want of habit it is difficult to turn one's mind in that direction: but if one turns it thither ever so little, one sees the principles fully, and one must have a quite inaccurate mind who reasons wrongly from principles so plain that it is almost impossible they should escape notice. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1178:The manner in which Epictetus, Montaigne, and Salomon de Tultie wrote, is the most usual, the most suggestive, the most remembered, and the oftener quoted; because it is entirely composed of thoughts born from the common talk of life. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1179:It is dangerous to explain too clearly to man how like he is to the animals without pointing out his greatness. It is also dangerous to make too much of his greatness without his vileness. It is still more dangerous to leave him in ignorance of both, but it is most valuable to represent both to him. Man must not be allowed to believe that he is equal either to animals or to angels, nor to be unaware of either, but he must know both. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1180:We never keep to the present. We recall the past; we anticipate the future as if we found it too slow in coming and were trying to hurry it up, or we recall the past as if to stay its too rapid flight. We are so unwise that we wander about in times that do not belong to us, and do not think of the only one that does; so vain that we dream of times that are not and blindly flee the only one that is. The fact is the present usually hurts. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1181:One-half of life is admitted by us to be passed in sleep, in which, however, it may appear otherwise, we have no perception of truth, and all our feelings are delusions; who knows but the other half of life, in which we think we are awake, is a sleep also, but in some respects different from the other, and from which we wake when we, as we call it, sleep. As a man dreams often that he is dreaming, crowding one dreamy delusion on another. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1182:For after all what is man in nature? A nothing in relation to infinity, all in relation to nothing, a central point between nothing and all and infinitely far from understanding either. The ends of things and their beginnings are impregnably concealed from him in an impenetrable secret. He is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness out of which he was drawn and the infinite in which he is engulfed. Blaise Pascal, Pensées No. 72 ~ Blaise Pascal,

1183:Man is so made that if he is told often enough that he is a fool he believes it. By telling himself so often enough he convinces himself, because when he is alone he carries on an inner dialogue with himself which it is important to keep under proper control. Evil communications corrupt good manners.1 We must keep silence as far as we can and only talk to ourselves about God, whom we know to be true, and thus convince ourselves that he is. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1184:Attention paid to the life, to the fact of life, to events and people, their enormous mattering--all the things that could not be more obvious when we're brought awake, but that really do get slurred away by distraction, sometimes for long periods, so that when the feeling does come back again, it seems like something that needs to be marked, sewn a la Blaise Pascal right into the lining of your coat--where you will always see it and remember ~ Sven Birkerts,

1185:Nos magistrats ont bien connu ce mystère. Leurs robes rouges, leurs hermines dont ils s'emmaillotent en chaffourés, les palais où ils jugent, les fleurs de lys, tout cet appareil auguste était fort nécessaire, et si les médecins n'avaient des soutanes et des mules, et que les docteurs n'eussent des bonnets carrés et des robes trop amples de quatre parties, jamais ils n'auraient dupé le monde qui ne peut résister à cette montre si authentique. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1186:Thus I stretch out my arms to my Saviour, who, after being foretold for four thousand years, came on earth to die and suffer for me at the time and in the circumstances foretold. By his grace I peaceably await death, in the hope of being eternally united to him, and meanwhile I live joyfully, whether in the blessings which he is pleased to bestow on me or in the affliction he sends me for my own good and taught me how to endure by his example. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1187:Ciascuno esamini i propri pensieri: li troverà sempre occupati dal passato e dall'avvenire. Non pensiamo quasi mai al presente, o se ci pensiamo, è solo per prenderne lume al fine di predisporre l'avvenire. Il presente non è mai il nostro fine: il passato o il presente sono i nostri mezzi; solo l'avvenire è il nostro fine. Così non viviamo mai, ma speriamo di vivere, e, preparandoci sempre ad essere felici, è inevitabile che non siamo mai tali. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1188:[80] Respect means; put yourself out. That may look pointless, but it is quite right, because it amounts to saying: I should certainly put myself out if you needed it, because I do so when you do not; besides, respect serves to distinguish the great. If respect meant sitting in an armchair we should be showing everyone respect and then there would be no way of marking distinction, but we make the distinction quite clear by putting ourselves out. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1189:Anyone who does not see the vanity of the world is very vain himself. So who does not see it, apart from young people whose lives are all noise, diversions, and thoughts for the future? But take away their diversion and you will see them bored to extinction. Then they feel their nullity without recognizing it, for nothing could be more wretched than to be intolerably depressed as soon as one is reduced to introspection with no means of diversion. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1190:[98]. How is it that a lame man does not annoy us while a lame mind does? Because a lame man recognizes that we are walking straight, while a lame mind says that it is we who are limping. But for that we should feel sorry rather than angry. Epictetus goes much further when he asks: Why do we not lose our temper if someone tells us that we have a headache, while we do lose it if someone says there is anything wrong with our arguments or our choice? ~ Blaise Pascal,

1191:Anyone who does not see the vanity of the world is very vain himself. So who does not see it, apart from young people whose lives are all noise, diversions, and thoughts for the future? But take away their diversion and you will see them bored to extinction. Then they feel their nullity without recognizing it, for nothing could be more wretched than to be intolerably depressed as soon as one is reduced to introspection with no means of diversion. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1192:[36] Anyone who does not see the vanity of the world is very vain himself. So who does not see it, apart from young people whose lives are all noise, diversions, and thoughts for the future? But take away their diversion and you will see them bored to extinction. Then they feel their nullity without recognizing it, for nothing could be more wretched than to be intolerably depressed as soon as one is reduced to introspection with no means of diversion. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1193:Just as I do not know where I came from, so I do not know where I am going. All I know is that when I leave this world I shall fall forever into oblivion, or into the hands of an angry God, without knowing which of the two will be my lot for eternity. Such is my state of mind, full of weakness and uncertainty. The only conclusion I can draw from all this is that I must pass my days without a thought of trying to find out what is going to happen to me. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1194:Our soul is cast into a body, where it finds number, time, dimension. Thereupon it reasons, and calls this nature, necessity, and can believe nothing else. 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. This being so, who will dare to undertake the decision of the question? Not we, who have no affinity to Him. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1195:you would like to cure yourself of unbelief and ask the remedy for it. Learn of those who have been bound like you, and who now stake all their possessions. These are people who know the way which you would follow, and who are cured of an ill of which you would be cured. Follow the way by which they began; by acting as if they believed, taking the holy water, having masses said, etc. Even this will naturally make you believe, and deaden your acuteness. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1196:Let a man choose what condition he will, and let him accumulate around him all the goods and gratifications seemingly calculated to make him happy in it; if that man is left at any time without occupation or amusement, and reflects on what he is, the meagre, languid felicity of his present lot will not bear him up. He will turn necessarily to gloomy anticipations of the future; and unless his occupation calls him out of himself, he is inevitably wretched. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1197:You don't become an 'artist' unless you've got something missing somewhere. Blaise Pascal called it a God-shaped hole. Everyone's got one but some are blacker and wider than others. It's a feeling of being abandoned,cut adrift in space and time-sometimes following the loss of a loved one. You can never completely fill that hole-you can try with songs,family,faith and by living a full life...but when things are silent, you can still hear the hissing of what's missing. ~ Bono,

1198:So I hold out my arms to my Redeemer, who, having been foretold for four thousand years, has come to suffer and to die for me on earth, at the time and under all the circumstances foretold. By His grace, I await death in peace, in the hope of being eternally united to Him. Yet I live with joy, whether in the prosperity which it pleases Him to bestow upon me, or in the adversity which He sends for my good, and which He has taught me to bear by His example. 737 ~ Blaise Pascal,

1199:Tikai doma mūs padara lielākus, nevis telpa un laiks, kuru ietvaros mēs esam nekas. Mēs nekad nedzīvojam tagadnē. Mēs steidzinām nākotni un piesaucam pagātni, cenšamies to atgriezt, it kā tā būtu aizgājusi no mums pārāk ātri. Mēs esam tik nesaprātīgi, ka klaiņojam laikā, kas mums nepieder, un ignorējam vienīgo, kas mums pieder - t.i., tagadni. [..] Lūk, tā arī iznāk, ka mēs nekad nedzīvojam, bet tikai grasāmies to darīt un, piesaucot laimi, to nekad neiegūstam. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1200:Let man then contemplate nature in full and lofty majesty, and turn his eyes away from the mean objects which surround him. Let him look at the dazzling light hung aloft as an eternal lamp to lighten the universe; let him behold the earth, a mere dot compared with the vast circuit which that orb describes, and stand amazed to find that the vast circuit itself is but a very fine point compared with the orbit traced by the starts as they roll their course on high. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1201:Let each of us examine his thoughts; he will find them wholly concerned with the past or the future. We almost never think of the present, and if we do think of it, it is only to see what light is throws on our plans for the future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means, the future alone our end. Thus we never actually live, but hope to live, and since we are always planning how to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1202:Extremes are for us as though they were not, and we are not within their notice. They escape us, or we them. This is our true state; this is what makes us incapable of certain knowledge and of absolute ignorance... This is our natural condition, and yet most contrary to our inclination; we burn with desire to find solid ground and an ultimate sure foundation whereon to build a tower reaching to the Infinite. But our whole groundwork cracks, and the earth opens to abysses. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1203:L’objet de ce discours est de montrer quel est le véritable sens des SS. pères et du Concile de Trente dans ces aproles : « Les commandemens ne sont pas impossibles aux justes : » cette proposition est susceptible de deux sens. Le premier, qu’il n’est pas impossible que les justes accomplissent les commandemens ; le second, que les commandemens sont toujours possibles à tous les justes, de ce plein et dernier pouvoir auquel il ne manque rien de la part de Dieu, pour agir. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1204:11 All great amusements are dangerous to the Christian life; but among all those which the world has invented there is none more to be feared than the theatre. It is a representation of the passions so natural and so delicate that it excites them and gives birth to them in our hearts, and, above all, to that of love, principally when it is represented as very chaste and virtuous. For the more innocent it appears to innocent souls, the more they are likely to be touched by it. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1205:We know that there is an infinite, and we know not its nature. As we know it to be false that numbers are finite, it is therefore true that there is a numerical infinity. But we know not of what kind; it is untrue that it is even, untrue that it is odd; for the addition of a unit does not change its nature; yet it is a number, and every number is odd or even (this certainly holds of every finite number). Thus we may quite well know that there is a God without knowing what He is. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1206:This internal war of reason against the passions has made a division of those who would have peace into two sects. The first would renounce their passions, and become gods; the others would renounce reason, and become brute beasts. (Des Barreaux.) [157] But neither can do so, and reason still remains, to condemn the vileness and injustice of the passions, and to trouble the repose of those who abandon themselves to them; and the passions keep always alive in those who would renounce them. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1207:Diversion. Sometimes, when I set to thinking the various activities of men, the dangers and troubles which they face at Court, or in war, giving rise to so many quarrels and passions, daring and often wicked enterprises and so on, I have often said the soul cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in a room. A man wealthy enough for life’s needs would never leave home to go to sea or besiege some fortress if he knew how to stay at home and enjoy it. (Page 32) ~ Blaise Pascal,

1208:However sad a man may be, if you can persuade him to take up some diversion he will be happy while it lasts, and however happy a man may be, if he lacks diversion and has no absorbing passion or entertainment to keep boredom away, he will soon be depressed and unhappy. Without diversion there is no joy; with diversion there is no sadness. That is what constitutes the happiness of persons of rank, for they have a number of people to divert them and the ability to keep themselves in this state. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1209:In a word, the Self has two qualities: it is unjust in itself since it makes itself the centre of everything; it is inconvenient to others since it would enslave them; for each self is the enemy, and would like to be the tyrant of all others. You take away its inconvenience, but not its injustice, and so you do not render it lovable to those who hate injustice; you render it lovable only to the unjust, who do not any longer find in it an enemy. And thus you remain unjust, and can please only the unjust ~ Blaise Pascal,

1210:We are full of things which take us out of ourselves. Our instinct makes us feel that we must seek our happiness outside ourselves. Our passions impel us outside, even when no objects present themselves to excite them. External objects tempt us of themselves, and call to us, even when we are not thinking of them. And thus philosophers have said in vain, " Retire within yourselves, you will find your good there." We do not believe them, and those who believe them are the most empty and the most foolish. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1211: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 endeavor to shine. We labor 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 willingly be cowards in order to acquire the reputation of being brave. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1212:When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and after, the little space which I fill, and even can see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I am ignorant, and which know me not, I am frightened, and am astonished at being here rather than there; for there is no reason why here rather than there, why now rather than then. Who has put me here? By whose order and direction have this place and time been allotted to me? Memoria hospitis unius diei prætereuntis. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1213:Either Christianity is true or it's false. If you bet that it's true, and you believe in God and submit to Him, then if it IS true, you've gained God, heaven, and everything else. If it's false, you've lost nothing, but you've had a good life marked by peace and the illusion that ultimately, everything makes sense. If you bet that Christianity is not true, and it's false, you've lost nothing. But if you bet that it's false, and it turns out to be true, you've lost everything and you get to spend eternity in hell. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1214: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1215:That is why gaming and feminine society, war and high office are so popular. It is not that they really bring happiness, nor that anyone imagines that true bliss comes from possessing the money to be won at gaming or the hare that is hunted: no one would take it as a gift. What people want is not the easy peaceful life that allows us to think of our unhappy condition, nor the dangers of war, nor the burdens of office, but the agitation that takes our mind off it and diverts us. That is why we prefer the hunt to the capture. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1216:Divine pleasure is a great gauge to determine whether we are laboring from rest or strife. Did you know that ultimately, every man is looking for pleasure? “All men seek happiness,” says Blaise Pascal. “This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves. ~ John Crowder,

1217:Buddhism is a practice, not a creed. It is something to do rather than something to believe. The key to its effectiveness is controlling the restless craving mind through meditation. By sitting still and watching how they breathe, by meditating on a word or a flower, practitioners move through different levels of consciousness to the calm that diminishes desire. Buddha would have agreed with an insight of the seventeenth-century French contemplative Blaise Pascal: ‘all human evil comes from a single cause, man’s inability to sit still in a room’. ~ Richard Holloway,

1218:All who say the same things do not possess them in the same manner; and hence the incomparable author of the Art of Conversation pauses with so much care to make it understood that we must not judge of the capacity of a man by the excellence of a happy remark that we heard him make. Let us penetrate, says he, the mind from which it proceeds. It will oftenest be seen that he will be made to disavow it on the spot, and will be drawn very far from this better thought in which he does not believe, to plunge himself into another, quite base and ridiculous. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1219:When I consider the brief span of my life absorbed into the eternity which precedes and will succeed it—memoria hospitis unius diei praetereuntis (remembrance of a guest who tarried but a day)—the small space I occupy and which I see swallowed up in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I know nothing and which know nothing of me, I take fright and am amazed to see myself here rather than there: there is no reason for me to be here rather than there, now rather than then. Who put me here? By whose command and act were this place and time allotted to me? ~ Blaise Pascal,

1220:Nobody is publicly accepted as an expert on poetry unless he displays the sign of poet, mathematician, etc., but universal men want no sign and make hardly any distinction between the crafts of poet and embroiderer. Universal men are not called poets or mathematicians, etc. But they are all these things and judges of them too. No one could guess what they are, and they will talk about whatever was being talked about when they came in. One quality is not more noticeable in them than another, unless it becomes necessary to put it into practice, and then we remember it. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1221:Nobody is publicly accepted as an expert on poetry unless he displays the sign of poet, mathematician, etc., but universal men want no sign and make hardly any distinction between the crafts of poet and embroiderer. Universal men are not called poets or mathematicians, etc. But they are all these things and judges of them too. No one could guess what they are, and they will talk about whatever was being talked about when they came in. One quality is not more noticeable in them than another, unless it becomes necessary to put it into practice, and then we remember it. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1222:You see, if the height of the mercury [barometer] column is less on the top of a mountain than at the foot of it (as I have many reasons for believing, although everyone who has so far written about it is of the contrary opinion), it follows that the weight of the air must be the sole cause of the phenomenon, and not that abhorrence of a vacuum, since it is obvious that at the foot of the mountain there is more air to have weight than at the summit, and we cannot possibly say that the air at the foot of the mountain has a greater aversion to empty space than at the top. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1223:Why are we not angry if we are told that we have a headache, and why are we angry if we are told that we reason badly, or choose wrongly?" The reason is that we are quite certain that we have not a headache, or are not lame, but we are not so sure that we make a true choice. So having assurance only because we see with our whole sight, it puts us into suspense and surprise when another with his whole sight sees the opposite, and still more so when a thousand others deride our choice. For we must prefer our own lights to those of so many others, and that is bold and difficult. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1224:I have spent much time in the study of the abstract sciences; but the paucity of persons with whom you can communicate on such subjects disgusted me with them. When I began to study man, I saw that these abstract sciences are not suited to him, and that in diving into them, I wandered farther from my real object than those who knew them not, and I forgave them for not having attended to these things. I expected then, however, that I should find some companions in the study of man, since it was so specifically a duty. I was in error. There are fewer students of man than of geometry. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1225:Attachment to the same thought wearies and destroys the mind of man. Hence for the solidity and permanence of the pleasure of love, it is sometimes necessary not to know that we love; and this is not to be guilty of an infidelity, for we do not therefore love another; it is to regain strength in order to love the better. This happens without our thinking of it; the mind is borne hither of itself; nature wills it, commands it. It must however be confessed that this is a miserable consequence of human weakness, and that we should be happier of we were not forced to change of thought; but there is no remedy. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1226:the groundbreakers in many sciences were devout believers. Witness the accomplishments of Nicolaus Copernicus (a priest) in astronomy, Blaise Pascal (a lay apologist) in mathematics, Gregor Mendel (a monk) in genetics, Louis Pasteur in biology, Antoine Lavoisier in chemistry, John von Neumann in computer science, and Enrico Fermi and Erwin Schrodinger in physics. That’s a short list, and it includes only Roman Catholics; a long list could continue for pages. A roster that included other believers—Protestants, Jews, and unconventional theists like Albert Einstein, Fred Hoyle, and Paul Davies—could fill a book. ~ Scott Hahn,

1227:Extreme intelligence is accused of being as foolish as extreme lack of it; only moderation is good. The majority have laid this down and attack anyone who deviates from it towards any extreme whatever. I am not going to be awkward, I readily consent to being put in the middle and refuse to be at the bottom end, not because it is the bottom but because it is the end, for I should refuse just as much to be put at the top. It is deserting humanity to desert the middle way. The greatness of the human soul lies in knowing how to keep this course; greatness does not mean going outside it, but rather keeping within it. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1228:When we wish to correct with advantage, and to show another that he errs, we must notice from what side he views the matter, for on that side it is usually true, and admit that truth to him, but reveal to him the side on which it is false. He is satisfied with that, for he sees that he was not mistaken, and that he only failed to see all sides. Now, no one is offended at not seeing everything; but one does not like to be mistaken, and that perhaps arises from the fact that man naturally cannot see everything, and that naturally he cannot err in the side he looks at, since the perceptions of our senses are always true.    ~ Blaise Pascal,

1229:When we want to correct someone usefully and show him he is wrong, we must see from what point of view he is approaching the matter, for it is usually right from that point of view, and we must admit this, but show him the point of view from which it is wrong. This will please him, because he will see that he was not wrong but merely failed to see every aspect of the question. Now, no one is annoyed at not seeing everything, but no one wants to be wrong; the reason for that may be that man is not by nature able to see everything, and by nature cannot be wrong from the point of view he adopts, as sense impressions are always true. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1230:And if one loves me for my judgement, memory, he does not love me, for I can lose these qualities without losing myself. Where, then, is this Ego, if it be neither in the body nor in the soul? And how love the body or the soul, except for these qualities which do not constitute me, since they are perishable? For it is impossible and would be unjust to love the soul of a person in the abstract and whatever qualities might be therein. We never, then, love a person, but only qualities. Let us, then, jeer no more at those who are honoured on account of rank and office; for we love a person only on account of borrowed qualities. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1231:Once that is clearly understood, I think that each of us can stay quietly in the state in which nature has placed him. since the middle station allotted to us is always far from the extremes, what does it matter if someone else has a slightly better understanding of things? If he has, and if he takes them a little further, is he not still infinitely remote from the goal? Is not our span of life equally infinitesimal in eternity, even if it is extended by ten years? In the perspective of all these infinites, all finites are equal and I see no reason to settle our imagination on one rather than another. Merely comparing ourselves with the finite is painful. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1232:We naturally believe we are more capable of reaching the centre of things than of embracing their circumference, and the visible extent of the world is visibly greater than we. But since we in our turn are greater than small things, we think we are more capable of mastering them, and yet it takes no less capacity to reach nothingness than the whole. In either case it takes an infinite capacity, and it seems to me that anyone who had understood the ultimate principles of things might also succeed in knowing infinity. One depends on the other, and one leads to the other. These extremes touch and join by going in opposite directions, and they meet in God and God alone. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1233:The human being is only a reed, the most feeble in nature; but this is a thinking reed. It isn't necessary for the entire universe to arm itself in order to crush him; a whiff of vapor, a taste of water, suffices to kill him. But when the universe crushes him, the human being becomes still more noble than that which kills him, because he knows that he is dying, and the advantage that the universe has over him. The universe, it does not have a clue. "All our dignity consists, then, in thought. This is the basis on which we must raise ourselves, and not space and time, which we would not know how to fill. Let us make it our task, then, to think well: here is the principle of morality. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1234:Justice, might.—It is right that what is just should be obeyed; it is necessary that what is strongest should be obeyed. Justice without might is helpless; might without justice is tyrannical. Justice without might is gainsaid, because there are always offenders; might without justice is condemned. We must then combine justice and might, and for this end make what is just strong, or what is strong just. Justice is subject to dispute; might is easily recognised and is not disputed. So we cannot give might to justice, because might has gainsaid justice, and has declared that it is she herself who is just. And thus being unable to make what is just strong, we have made what is strong just. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1235:It would therefore be a good thing for us to obey laws and customs because they are laws: to know that there is no right and just law to be brought in, that we know nothing about it and should consequently only follow those already accepted. In this way we should never give them up. But the people are not amenable to this doctrine, and thus, believing that truth can be found and resides in laws and customs, they believe them and take their antiquity as a proof of their truth (and not just of their authority, without truth). Thus they obey them but are liable to revolt as soon as they are shown to be worth nothing, which can happen with all laws if they are looked at from a certain point of view. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1236:This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself. God alone is man’s true good, and since man abandoned him it is a strange fact that nothing in nature has been found to take his place: stars, sky, earth, elements, plants, cabbages, leeks, animals, insects, calves, serpents, fever, plague, war, famine, vice, adultery, incest. Since losing his true good, man is capable of seeing it in anything, even his own destruction, although it is so contrary at once to God, to reason and to nature. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1237:If we dreamed the same thing every night, it would affect us as much as the objects we see every day. And if an artisan was sure of dreaming for twelve hours every night that he was king, I believe he would be almost as happy as a king who dreamed for twelve hours every night that he was an artisan. ...But because dreams are all different, and there is a variety even within each one, what we see in them affects us much less than what we see when we are awake, because of the continuity. This, however, is not so continuous and even that it does not change too, though less abruptly, except on rare occasions, as on a journey, when we say: 'It seems like a dream.' For life is a dream, but somewhat less changeable. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1238:Wanneer je op een nuttige manier kritiek wilt leveren en een ander laten inzien dat hij zich vergist, moet je onderzoeken van welke kant hij de zaak bekijkt - want van dat standpunt is die meestal juist - en de juistheid hiervan tegenover hem erkennen, maar hem tevens laten zien van welk standpunt zij niet juist is. Daar neemt hij genoegen mee, want hij ziet dat hij zich niet vergist heeft en alleen maar heeft verzuimd om alle kanten te bekijken. Je wordt namelijk niet boos omdat je niet alles ziet, maar je wilt je niet vergissen. Misschien komt dat omdat de mens van nature niet alles kan zien en zich van nature niet kan vergissen ten aanzien van de kant die hij wel ziet omdat de zintuiglijke waarnemingen altijd waar zijn. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1239:We never keep to the present. We recall the past; we anticipate the future as if were found it too slow in coming and were trying to hurry it up, or we recall the past as if to stay it's too rapid flight. We are so unwise that we wander about in times that do not belong to us, and do not think of the only one that does; so vain that we dream of times that are not and blindly flee the only one that is. The fact is the present usually hurts. We thrust it out of sight because it distresses us, and if we find it enjoyable, we are sorry to see it slip away. We try to give it the support of the future, and think how we are going to arrange things over which we have no control for a time we can never be sure of reaching. (Page 9) ~ Blaise Pascal,

1240:I ask you neither for health nor for sickness, for life nor for death; but that you may dispose of my health and my sickness, my life and my death, for your glory ... You alone know what is expedient for me; you are the sovereign master, do with me according to your will. Give to me, or take away from me, only conform my will to yours. I know but one thing, Lord, that it is good to follow you, and bad to offend you. Apart from that, I know not what is good or bad in anything. I know not which is most profitable to me, health or sickness, wealth or poverty, nor anything else in the world. That discernment is beyond the power of men or angels, and is hidden among the secrets of your providence, which I adore, but do not seek to fathom. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1241:[How does it happen that this man, so distressed at the death of his wife and his only son, or who has some great lawsuit which annoys him, is not at this moment sad, and that he seems so free from all painful and disquieting thoughts? We need not wonder; for a ball has been served him, and he must return it to his companion. He is occupied in catching it in its fall from the roof, to win a game. How can he think of his own affairs, pray, when he has this other matter in hand? Here is a care worthy of occupying this great soul, and taking away from him every other thought of the mind. This man, born to know the universe, to judge all causes, to govern a whole state, is altogether occupied and taken up with the business of catching a hare. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1242:In The Silver Chair, the Marsh-wiggle Puddleglum is all wisdom in rebutting the witch as she denies the existence of the world in which he believes. But as children's fiction isn't quite academically respectable, I'll pretend that I learned this from Blaise Pascal. [...] If the world really is accidental and devoid of meaning, and you and I have no more value in the cosmos than you average bread mold, and Beauty and Goodness are artificial constructs imagined within an explosion, constructs that are controlled by chemical reactions within the accident and have no necessary correspondence to reality, then my made-up children's world licks your real world silly. Depart from me. Go drown in your seething accident. Puddleglum and I are staying here. ~ N D Wilson,

1243:Why should I choose to divide my ethics into four rather than six? Why should I define virtue as four, or two, or one? Why as desist and resist rather than 'follow nature' or 'discharge your private business without injustice', like Plato, or anything else? 'But,' you will say, 'there everything is summed up in a word. - 'Yes, but that is no good unless you explain it.' And when you come to explain it, as soon as you open up this precept which contains all the others, out they all come in the original confusion that you wanted to avoid. Thus when they are all enclosed in one they are concealed and useless, as if they were in a box, and they only come to light in their natural confusion. Nature has laid them down, without enclosing one inside another. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1244: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1245:Tous les grands divertissement sont dangereux [...]; mais entre tous ceux que le monde a inventés, il n'y en a point qui soit plus à craindre que la comedie. C'est une représentation si naturelle et si délicate des passions, qu'elle les émeut et les fait naitre dans notre coeur, et surtout celle de l'amour; principalement lorsqu'on le représente fort chaste et fort honnete. Car plus il parait innocent aux ames innocentes, plus elles sont capables d'en etre touchées; sa violence plait a notre amour-propre, qui forme un desir de causer les memes effets, que l'on voit si bien représentes; et l'on se fait en meme temps une conscience fondée sur l'honneteté des sentiments qu'on y voit, qui otent la crainte des ames pures, qui s'imaginent que ce n'est pas blesser la pureté, d'aimer d'un amour qui leur semble si sage. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1246:I am in terrible ignorance of everything. I know not what my body is, nor my senses, nor my soul, not even that part of me which thinks what I say, which reflects on all and on itself, and knows itself no more than the rest. I see those frightful spaces of the universe which surround me, and I find myself tied to one corner of this vast expanse, without knowing why I am put in this place rather than in another, nor why the short time which is given me to live is assigned to me at this point rather than at another of the whole eternity which was before me or which shall come after me. I see nothing but infinites on all sides, which surround me as an atom and as a shadow which endures only for an instant and returns no more. All I know is that I must soon die, but what I know least is this very death which I cannot escape. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1247:We may worry that the witness has the whole of time and space in its gaze, and our life shrinks to nothingness, just an insignificant, infinitesimal fragment of the whole. ‘The silence of those infinite spaces terrifies me,’ said Blaise Pascal (1623–62). But the Cambridge philosopher Frank Ramsey (1903–30) replied: Where I seem to differ from some of my friends is in attaching little importance to physical size. I don’t feel the least humble before the vastness of the heavens. The stars may be large, but they cannot think or love; and these are qualities which impress me far more than size does. I take no credit for weighing nearly seventeen stone. My picture of the world is drawn in perspective, and not like a model to scale. The foreground is occupied by human beings, and the stars are all as small as threepenny bits. ~ Simon Blackburn,

1248:If the foot had never realized it belonged to the body, & that there never was a body on which it depended, if it had only known & loved itself & then came to know that it really belonged to the body on which it depended, think of the regret & shame it would feel for its past existence. It would recognize how useless it had been to the body in spite of the life poured into it, & how it would have been destroyed if the body had rejected it & cut it off as the foot cut itself off from the body! How it would have desired earnestly to be kept on! How obediently it would let itself be governed by the will in charge of the body, to the point of being amputated if necessary! Otherwise it would cease to a member, for every member must be ready to perish for the sake of the whole, for whose sake alone exists. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1249:L'homme n'est qu'un roseau, le plus faible de la nature; mais c'est un roseau pensant. Il ne faut pas que l'univers entier s'arme pour l'écraser : une vapeur, une goutte d'eau, suffit pour le tuer. Mais, quand l'univers l'écraserait, l'homme serait encore plus noble que ce qui le tue, puisqu'il sait qu'il meurt, et l'avantage que l'univers a sur lui, l'univers n'en sait rien. Toute notre dignité consiste donc en la pensée. C'est de là qu'il faut nous relever et non de l'espace et de la durée, que nous ne saurions remplir. Travaillons donc à bien penser : voilà le principe de la morale. Ce n'est point de l'espace que je dois chercher ma dignité, mais c'est du règlement de ma pensée. Je n'aurai pas d'avantage en possédant des terres : par l'espace, l'univers me comprend et m'engloutit comme un point; par la pensée, je le comprends. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1250: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. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1251:The Christian religion alone has been able to cure these twin vices, not by using one to expel the other according to worldly wisdom, but by expelling both through the simplicity of the Gospel. For it teaches the righteous, whom it exalts, even to participation in divinity itself, that in this sublime state they still bear the source of all corruption, which exposes them throughout their lives to error, misery, death and sin; and it cries out to the most ungodly that they are capable of the grace of their redeemer. Thus, making those whom it justifies tremble and consoling those whom it condemns, it so nicely tempers fear with hope through this dual capacity, common to all men, for grace and sin, that it causes infinitely more dejection than mere reason, but without despair, and infinitely more exaltation than natural pride, but without puffing us up. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1252:For it is beyond doubt that there is nothing which more shocks our reason than to say that the sin of the first man has rendered guilty those, who, being so removed from this source, seem incapable of participation in it. This transmission does not only seem to us impossible, it seems also very unjust. For what is more contrary to the rules of our miserable justice than to damn eternally an infant incapable of will, for a sin wherein he seems to have so little a share, that it was committed six thousand years before he was in existence? Certainly nothing offends us more rudely than this doctrine; and yet, without this mystery, the most incomprehensible of all, we are incomprehensible to ourselves. The knot of our condition takes its twists and turns in this abyss, so that man is more inconceivable without this mystery than this mystery is inconceivable to man. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1253:Razboiul launtric al ratiunii impotriva pasiunii a facut ca cei care au voit sa aiba pacea sa se imparta in doua secte. Unii au voit sa renunte la pasiuni si sa devina dumnezei, ceilalti au vrut sa renunte la ratiune si sa devina vite. Dar nici unii, nici ceilalti n-au putut-o face; si ratiunea ramane totdeauna in picioare acuzand nimicnicia si nedreptatea pasiunior care tulbura odihna celor ce li se abandoneaza; si pasiunile sunt totdeauna vii, chiar si in sufletul celor care fac efortul de a renunta la ele. Iata ce poate omul prin el insusi si prin propriile sale eforturi cu privire la adevar si la bine. In ce priveste dovezile, suntem neputinciosi. Cautam adevarul, dar nu gasim decat incertitudine. Cautam fericirea, dar nu gasim decat nefericire si mizerie. Suntem incapabili de a nu dori adevarul si fericirea; insa nu suntem capabili nici de certitudine, nici de fericire. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1254:Let man then contemplate the whole of nature in her full and grand majesty, and turn his vision from the low objects which surround him. Let him gaze on that brilliant light, set like an eternal lamp to illumine the universe; let the earth appear to him a point in comparison with the vast circle described by the sun; and let him wonder at the fact that this vast circle is itself but a very fine point in comparison with that described by the stars in their revolution round the firmament. But if our view be arrested there, let our imagination pass beyond; it will sooner exhaust the power of conception than nature that of supplying material for conception. The whole visible world is only an imperceptible atom in the ample bosom of nature. It is an infinite sphere, the center of which is everywhere, the circumference nowhere. In short it is the greatest sensible mark of the almighty power of God, that imagination loses itself in that thought. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1255:When I see the blindness and the wretchedness of man, when I regard the whole silent universe, and man without light, left to himself, and, as it were, lost in this corner of the universe, without knowing who has put him there, what he has come to do, what will become of him at death, and incapable of all knowledge, I become terrified, like a man who should be carried in his sleep to a dreadful desert island, and should awake without knowing where he is, and without means of escape. And thereupon I wonder how people in a condition so wretched do not fall into despair. I see other persons around me of a like nature. I ask them if they are better informed than I am. They tell me that they are not. And thereupon these wretched and lost beings, having looked around them, and seen some pleasing objects, have given and attached themselves to them. For my own part, I have not been able to attach myself to them, and, considering how strongly it appears that there is something else than what I see, I have examined whether this God has not left some sign of Himself. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1256:What is the self? A man goes to the window to see the people passing by; if I pass by, can I say he went there to see me? No, for he is not thinking of me in particular. But what about a person who loves someone for the sake of her beauty; does he love her? No, for smallpox, which will destroy beauty without destroying the person, will put an end to his love for her. And if someone loves me for my judgement or my memory, do they love me? me, myself? No, for I could lose these qualities without losing my self. Where then is this self, if it is neither in the body nor the soul? And how can one love the body or the soul except for the sake of such qualities, which are not what makes up the self, since they are perishable? Would we love the substance of a person's soul, in the abstract, whatever qualities might be in it? That is not possible, and it would be wrong. Therefore we never love anyone, but only qualities. Let us then stop scoffing at those who win honour through their appointments and offices, for we never love anyone except for borrowed qualities. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1257:He who does not see the vanity of the world is himself very vain. Indeed who do not see it but youths who are absorbed in fame, diversion, and the thought of the future? But take away diversion, and you will see them dried up with weariness. They feel then their nothingness without knowing it; for it is indeed to be unhappy to be in insufferable sadness as soon as we are reduced to thinking of self, and have no diversion.” If our condition were truly happy, we would not need diversion from thinking of it in order to make ourselves happy. As men are not able to fight against death, misery, ignorance, they have taken it into their heads, in order to be happy, not to think of them at all. The only thing which consoles us for our miseries is diversion, and yet this it the greatest of our miseries. For it is this which principally hinders us from reflecting upon ourselves, and which makes us insensibly ruin ourselves. Without this we should be in a state of weariness, and this weariness would spur us to seek a more solid means of escaping from it. But diversion amuses us, and leads us unconsciously to death ~ Blaise Pascal,

1258:The only good thing for men therefore is to be diverted from thinking of what they are, either by some occupation which takes their mind off it, or by some novel and agreeable passion which keeps them busy, like gambling, hunting, some absorbing show, in short by what is called diversion...Thus men who are naturally conscious of what they are shun nothing so much as rest; they would do anything to be disturbed. It is wrong then to blame them; they are not wrong to want excitement - if they only wanted it for the sake of diversion. The trouble is that they want it as though, once they had the things they seek, they could not fail to be truly happy. That is what justifies calling their search a vain one. All this shows that neither the critics nor the criticized understand man's real nature. When men are reproached for pursuing so eagerly something that could never satisfy them, their proper answer, if they really thought about it, ought to be that they simply want a violent and vigorous occupation to take their minds off themselves, and that is why they choose some attractive object to entice them in ardent pursuit. Their opponents could find no answer to that. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1259:We never keep to the present. We recall the past; we anticipate the future as if we found it too slow in coming and were trying to hurry it up, or we recall the past as if to stay its too rapid flight. We are so unwise that we wander about in times that do not belong to us, and do not think of the only one that does; so vain that we dream of time that are not and blindly flee the only one that is. The fact is that the present usually hurts. We thrust it out of sight because it distresses us, and if we find it enjoyable, we are sorry to see it slip away. We try to give it the support of the future, and think how we are going to arrange things over which we have no control for a time we can never be sure of reaching. Let each of us examine his thoughts; he will find them wholly concerned with the past or the future. We almost never think of the present, and if we do think of it, it is only to see what light it throws on our plans for the future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means, the future alone our end. Thus we never actually live, but hope to live, and since we always planning how to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1260:All great amusements are dangerous to the Christian life; but among all those which the world has invented there is none more to be feared than the theatre. It is a representation of the passions so natural and so delicate that it excites them and gives birth to them in our hearts, and, above all, to that of love, principally when it is represented as very chaste and virtuous. For the more innocent it appears to innocent souls, the more they are likely to be touched by it. Its violence pleases our self-love, which immediately forms a desire to produce the same effects which are seen so well represented; and, at the same time, we make ourselves a conscience founded on the propriety of the feelings which we see there, by which the fear of pure souls is removed, since they imagine that it cannot hurt their purity to love with a love which seems to them so reasonable. So we depart from the theatre with our heart so filled with all the beauty and tenderness of love, the soul and the mind so persuaded of its innocence, that we are quite ready to receive its first impressions, or rather to seek an opportunity of awakening them in the heart of another, in order that we may receive the same pleasures and the same sacrifices which we have seen so well represented in the theatre. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1261:All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves. And yet after such a great number of years, no one without faith has reached the point to which all continually look. All complain, princes and subjects, noblemen and commoners, old and young, strong and weak, learned and ignorant, healthy and sick, of all countries, all time, all ages, and all conditions. A trial so long, so continuous, and so uniform should certainly convince us of our inability to reach the good by our own efforts.... What is it then that this desire and this inability proclaim to us, but that there was once in man a true happiness of which there now remains to him only; the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present? But these are all inadequate, because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite and immutable Object, that is to say, only by God Himself. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1262:If man made himself the first object of study, he would see how incapable he is of going further. How can a part know the whole? But he may perhaps aspire to know at least the parts to which he bears some proportion. But the parts of the world are all so related and linked to one another, that I believe it impossible to know one without the other and without the whole. Man, for instance, is related to all he knows. He needs a place wherein to abide, time through which to live, motion in order to live, elements to compose him, warmth and food to nourish him, air to breathe. He sees light; he feels bodies; in short, he is in a dependant alliance with everything. To know man, then, it is necessary to know how it happens that he needs air to live, and, to know the air, we must know how it is thus related to the life of man, etc. Flame cannot exist without air; therefore to understand the one, we must understand the other. Since everything then is cause and effect, dependant and supporting, mediate and immediate, and all is held together by a natural though imperceptible chain, which binds together things most distant and most different, I hold it equally impossible to know the parts without knowing the whole, and to know the whole without knowing the parts in detail. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1263:philosopher named Blaise Pascal said that if you have a choice of believing in God or not believing in God, it's a better gamble to believe. Because if you believe in God and you're wrong—well, nothing happens. You just die into the nothingness of the universe. But if you don't believe in God and you're wrong, then you go to hell for eternity, at least according to some folks.” “Not much of a reason to be religious,” I said. “Not much at all,” he said. “I was surrounded by hundreds of men waiting for the end of their lives, waiting for that something better that comes after death. I felt the same way. I wanted to believe there was something better on the other side. I was killing time in prison, waiting for that crossover. And that's when Pascal's gambit popped into my head, but with a small twist. What if I was wrong? What if there was no other side. What if, in all the eons of eternity, this was the one and only time that I would be alive. How would I live my life if that were the case? Know what I mean? What if this was all there is?” “Well, I guess there'd be a lot of disappointed dead priests,” I said. Carl chuckled. “Well, there's that,” he said. “But it also means that this is our heaven. We are surrounded every day by the wonders of life, wonders beyond comprehension that we simply take for granted. I decided that day that I would live my life—not simply exist. If I died and discovered heaven on the other side, well, that'd be just fine and dandy. But if I didn't live my life as if I was already in heaven, and I died and found only nothingness, well…I would have wasted my life. I would have wasted my one chance in all of history to be alive. ~ Allen Eskens,

1264:reading :::    50 Philosophy Classics: List of Books Covered:    1. Hannah Arendt - The Human Condition (1958)    2. Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics (4th century BC)    3. AJ Ayer - Language, Truth and Logic (1936)    4. Julian Baggini - The Ego Trick (2011)    5. Jean Baudrillard - Simulacra and Simulation (1981)    6. Simone de Beauvoir - The Second Sex (1952)    7. Jeremy Bentham - Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789)    8. Henri Bergson - Creative Evolution (1911)    9. David Bohm - Wholeness and the Implicate Order (1980)    10. Noam Chomsky - Understanding Power (2002)    11. Cicero - On Duties (44 BC)    12. Confucius - Analects (5th century BC)    13. Rene Descartes - Meditations (1641)    14. Ralph Waldo Emerson - Fate (1860)    15. Epicurus - Letters (3rd century BC)    16. Michel Foucault - The Order of Things (1966)    17. Harry Frankfurt - On Bullshit (2005)    18. Sam Harris - Free Will (2012)    19. GWF Hegel - Phenomenology of Spirit (1803)    20. Martin Heidegger - Being and Time (1927)    21. Heraclitus - Fragments (6th century)    22. David Hume - An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)    23. William James - Pragmatism (1904)    24. Daniel Kahneman - Thinking: Fast and Slow (2011)    25. Immanuel Kant - Critique of Pure Reason (1781)    26. Soren Kierkegaard - Fear and Trembling (1843)    27. Saul Kripke - Naming and Necessity (1972)    28. Thomas Kuhn - The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962)    29. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz - Theodicy (1710)    30. John Locke - An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)    31. Marshall McLuhan - The Medium is the Massage (1967)    32. Niccolo Machiavelli - The Prince (1532)    33. John Stuart Mill - On Liberty (1859)    34. Michel de Montaigne - Essays (1580)    35. Iris Murdoch - The Sovereignty of Good (1970)    36. Friedrich Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil (1886)    37. Blaise Pascal - Pensees (1670)    38. Plato - The Republic (4th century BC)    39. Karl Popper - The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934)    40. John Rawls - A Theory of Justice (1971)    41. Jean-Jacques Rousseau - The Social Contract (1762)    42. Bertrand Russell - The Conquest of Happiness (1920)    43. Michael Sandel - Justice (2009)    44. Jean Paul Sartre - Being and Nothingness (1943)    45. Arthur Schopenhauer - The World as Will and Representation (1818)    46. Peter Singer - The Life You Can Save (2009)    47. Baruch Spinoza - Ethics (1677)    48. Nassim Nicholas - Taleb The Black Swan (2007)    49. Ludwig Wittgenstein - Philosophical Investigations (1953)    50. Slavoj Zizek - Living In The End Times (2010)    ~ Tom Butler-Bowdon, 50 Philosophy Classics,

1265:Canon 21. « Si quelqu’un dit que le juste ait le pouvoir de persévérer sans un secours spécial de Dieu, ou qu’il ne le puisse avec ce secours : qu’il soit anathème. » Canon 25. « Si quelqu’un dit que le juste pèche en toute bonne œuvre véniellement, ou, ce qui est plus insupportable, mortellement, et qu’il mérite la peine éternelle, mais qu’il n’est pas damné, par cette seule raison que Dieu ne lui impute pas ses œuvres à damnation : qu’il soit anathème. » Par où l’on voit, non-seulement que ces paroles, que « les commandemens ne sont pas impossibles aux justes, » sont restreintes à cette condition, quand ils sont secourus par la grâce ; mais qu’elles n’ont que la même force que celles-ci, que « les justes ne pèchent pas en toutes leurs actions ; » et enfin tant s’en faut que le pouvoir prochain soit étendu à tous les justes, qu’il est défendu de l’attribuer à ceux qui ne sont pas secourus de ce secours spécial, qui n’est pas commun à tous, comme il a été expliqué. Concluons donc que tous les Pères ne tiennent pas un autre langage. Saint Augustin et les Pères qui l’ont suivi, n’ont jamais parlé des commandemens, qu’en disant qu’ils ne sont pas impossibles à la charité, et qu’ils ne nous sont faits que pour nous faire sentir le besoin que nous avons de la charité, qui seule les accomplit. « Dieu, juste et bon, n’a pu commander des choses impossibles ; ce qui nous avertit de faire ce qui est facile, et de demander ce qui est difficile. » (Aug., De nat. et grat., cap. LXIX.) « Car toutes choses sont faciles à la charité. » (De perfect. justit., cap. x.) Et ailleurs : « Qui ne sait que ce qui se fait par amour n’est pas difficile? Ceux-là ressentent de la peine à accomplir les préceptes, qui s’efforcent de les observer par la crainte ; mais la parfaite charité chasse la crainte, et rend le joug du précepte doux ; et, bien loin d’accabler par son poids, elle soulève comme si elle nous donnoit des ailes. » Cette charité ne vient pas de notre libre arbitre (si la grâce de Jésus-Christ ne nous secourt), parce qu’elle est infuse et mise dans nos cœurs, non par nous-mêmes, mais par le Saint-Esprit. Et l’Écriture nous avertit que les préceptes ne sont pas difficiles, par cette seule raison, qui est que l’âme qui les ressent pesans, entende qu’elle n’a pas encore reçu les forces par lesquelles ils lui sont doux et légers. « Quand il nous est commandé de vouloir, notre devoir nous est marqué ; mais parce que nous ne pouvons pas l’avoir de nous-mêmes, nous sommes avertis à qui nous devons le demander ; mais toutefois nous ne pouvons pas faire cette demande, si Dieu n’opère en nous de le vouloir. » (Fulg., lib. II, De verit. praedest., cap. iv.) « Les préceptes ne nous sont donnés que par cette seule raison, qui est de nous faire rechercher le secours de celui qui nous commande, » etc. (Prosper, Epist. ad Demetriad.) « Les pélagiens s’imaginent dire quelque chose d’important, quand ils disent que Dieu ne commanderoit pas ce qu’il saurait que l’homme ne pourroit faire. Qui ne sait cela? Mais il commande des choses que nous ne pouvons pas, afin que nous connoissions à qui nous devons le demander. » (Aug., De nat. et grat., cap. xv et xvi.) « O homme! reconnois dans le précepte ce que tu dois ; dans la correction, que c’est par ton vice que tu ne le fais pas ; et dans la prière, d’où tu peux en avoir le pouvoir! (Aug., De corrept., cap. ni.) Car la loi commande, afin que l’homme, sentant qu’il manque de force pour l’accomplir, ne s’enfle pas de superbe, mais étant fatigué, recoure à la grâce, et qu’ainsi la loi l’épouvantant le mène à l’amour de Jésus-Christ » (Aug., De perfect. respons. et ratiocin. xj., cap. ~ Blaise Pascal,

1266:Reading list (1972 edition)[edit] 1. Homer – Iliad, Odyssey 2. The Old Testament 3. Aeschylus – Tragedies 4. Sophocles – Tragedies 5. Herodotus – Histories 6. Euripides – Tragedies 7. Thucydides – History of the Peloponnesian War 8. Hippocrates – Medical Writings 9. Aristophanes – Comedies 10. Plato – Dialogues 11. Aristotle – Works 12. Epicurus – Letter to Herodotus; Letter to Menoecus 13. Euclid – Elements 14. Archimedes – Works 15. Apollonius of Perga – Conic Sections 16. Cicero – Works 17. Lucretius – On the Nature of Things 18. Virgil – Works 19. Horace – Works 20. Livy – History of Rome 21. Ovid – Works 22. Plutarch – Parallel Lives; Moralia 23. Tacitus – Histories; Annals; Agricola Germania 24. Nicomachus of Gerasa – Introduction to Arithmetic 25. Epictetus – Discourses; Encheiridion 26. Ptolemy – Almagest 27. Lucian – Works 28. Marcus Aurelius – Meditations 29. Galen – On the Natural Faculties 30. The New Testament 31. Plotinus – The Enneads 32. St. Augustine – On the Teacher; Confessions; City of God; On Christian Doctrine 33. The Song of Roland 34. The Nibelungenlied 35. The Saga of Burnt Njál 36. St. Thomas Aquinas – Summa Theologica 37. Dante Alighieri – The Divine Comedy;The New Life; On Monarchy 38. Geoffrey Chaucer – Troilus and Criseyde; The Canterbury Tales 39. Leonardo da Vinci – Notebooks 40. Niccolò Machiavelli – The Prince; Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy 41. Desiderius Erasmus – The Praise of Folly 42. Nicolaus Copernicus – On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres 43. Thomas More – Utopia 44. Martin Luther – Table Talk; Three Treatises 45. François Rabelais – Gargantua and Pantagruel 46. John Calvin – Institutes of the Christian Religion 47. Michel de Montaigne – Essays 48. William Gilbert – On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies 49. Miguel de Cervantes – Don Quixote 50. Edmund Spenser – Prothalamion; The Faerie Queene 51. Francis Bacon – Essays; Advancement of Learning; Novum Organum, New Atlantis 52. William Shakespeare – Poetry and Plays 53. Galileo Galilei – Starry Messenger; Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences 54. Johannes Kepler – Epitome of Copernican Astronomy; Concerning the Harmonies of the World 55. William Harvey – On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals; On the Circulation of the Blood; On the Generation of Animals 56. Thomas Hobbes – Leviathan 57. René Descartes – Rules for the Direction of the Mind; Discourse on the Method; Geometry; Meditations on First Philosophy 58. John Milton – Works 59. Molière – Comedies 60. Blaise Pascal – The Provincial Letters; Pensees; Scientific Treatises 61. Christiaan Huygens – Treatise on Light 62. Benedict de Spinoza – Ethics 63. John Locke – Letter Concerning Toleration; Of Civil Government; Essay Concerning Human Understanding;Thoughts Concerning Education 64. Jean Baptiste Racine – Tragedies 65. Isaac Newton – Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy; Optics 66. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz – Discourse on Metaphysics; New Essays Concerning Human Understanding;Monadology 67. Daniel Defoe – Robinson Crusoe 68. Jonathan Swift – A Tale of a Tub; Journal to Stella; Gulliver's Travels; A Modest Proposal 69. William Congreve – The Way of the World 70. George Berkeley – Principles of Human Knowledge 71. Alexander Pope – Essay on Criticism; Rape of the Lock; Essay on Man 72. Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu – Persian Letters; Spirit of Laws 73. Voltaire – Letters on the English; Candide; Philosophical Dictionary 74. Henry Fielding – Joseph Andrews; Tom Jones 75. Samuel Johnson – The Vanity of Human Wishes; Dictionary; Rasselas; The Lives of the Poets ~ Mortimer J Adler,

1267:Reading list (1972 edition)[edit] 1. Homer - Iliad, Odyssey 2. The Old Testament 3. Aeschylus - Tragedies 4. Sophocles - Tragedies 5. Herodotus - Histories 6. Euripides - Tragedies 7. Thucydides - History of the Peloponnesian War 8. Hippocrates - Medical Writings 9. Aristophanes - Comedies 10. Plato - Dialogues 11. Aristotle - Works 12. Epicurus - Letter to Herodotus; Letter to Menoecus 13. Euclid - Elements 14.Archimedes - Works 15. Apollonius of Perga - Conic Sections 16. Cicero - Works 17. Lucretius - On the Nature of Things 18. Virgil - Works 19. Horace - Works 20. Livy - History of Rome 21. Ovid - Works 22. Plutarch - Parallel Lives; Moralia 23. Tacitus - Histories; Annals; Agricola Germania 24. Nicomachus of Gerasa - Introduction to Arithmetic 25. Epictetus - Discourses; Encheiridion 26. Ptolemy - Almagest 27. Lucian - Works 28. Marcus Aurelius - Meditations 29. Galen - On the Natural Faculties 30. The New Testament 31. Plotinus - The Enneads 32. St. Augustine - On the Teacher; Confessions; City of God; On Christian Doctrine 33. The Song of Roland 34. The Nibelungenlied 35. The Saga of Burnt Njal 36. St. Thomas Aquinas - Summa Theologica 37. Dante Alighieri - The Divine Comedy;The New Life; On Monarchy 38. Geoffrey Chaucer - Troilus and Criseyde; The Canterbury Tales 39. Leonardo da Vinci - Notebooks 40. Niccolò Machiavelli - The Prince; Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy 41. Desiderius Erasmus - The Praise of Folly 42. Nicolaus Copernicus - On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres 43. Thomas More - Utopia 44. Martin Luther - Table Talk; Three Treatises 45. François Rabelais - Gargantua and Pantagruel 46. John Calvin - Institutes of the Christian Religion 47. Michel de Montaigne - Essays 48. William Gilbert - On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies 49. Miguel de Cervantes - Don Quixote 50. Edmund Spenser - Prothalamion; The Faerie Queene 51. Francis Bacon - Essays; Advancement of Learning; Novum Organum, New Atlantis 52. William Shakespeare - Poetry and Plays 53. Galileo Galilei - Starry Messenger; Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences 54. Johannes Kepler - Epitome of Copernican Astronomy; Concerning the Harmonies of the World 55. William Harvey - On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals; On the Circulation of the Blood; On the Generation of Animals 56. Thomas Hobbes - Leviathan 57. René Descartes - Rules for the Direction of the Mind; Discourse on the Method; Geometry; Meditations on First Philosophy 58. John Milton - Works 59. Molière - Comedies 60. Blaise Pascal - The Provincial Letters; Pensees; Scientific Treatises 61. Christiaan Huygens - Treatise on Light 62. Benedict de Spinoza - Ethics 63. John Locke - Letter Concerning Toleration; Of Civil Government; Essay Concerning Human Understanding;Thoughts Concerning Education 64. Jean Baptiste Racine - Tragedies 65. Isaac Newton - Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy; Optics 66. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz - Discourse on Metaphysics; New Essays Concerning Human Understanding;Monadology 67.Daniel Defoe - Robinson Crusoe 68. Jonathan Swift - A Tale of a Tub; Journal to Stella; Gulliver's Travels; A Modest Proposal 69. William Congreve - The Way of the World 70. George Berkeley - Principles of Human Knowledge 71. Alexander Pope - Essay on Criticism; Rape of the Lock; Essay on Man 72. Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu - Persian Letters; Spirit of Laws 73. Voltaire - Letters on the English; Candide; Philosophical Dictionary 74. Henry Fielding - Joseph Andrews; Tom Jones 75. Samuel Johnson - The Vanity of Human Wishes; Dictionary; Rasselas; The Lives of the Poets    ~ Mortimer J Adler,