Blaise Pascal Thinking Quotations

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

There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who think they are sinners and the sinners who think they are righteous.

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

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.

Man is but a reed, the most weak in nature, but he is a thinking reed

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

The greatest single distinguishing feature of the omnipotence of God is that our imagination gets lost thinking about it.

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.

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.

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.

Death is easier to bear without thinking of it, than the thought of death without peril.

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.

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?

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.

Thinking too little about things or thinking too much both make us obstinate and fanatical.

Who knows if this other half of life where we think we're awake is not another sleep a little different from the first.

Eloquence is a painting of thought; and thus those who, after having painted it, add something more, make a picture instead of a portrait.

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.

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.

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.

Thought makes the whole dignity of man; therefore endeavor to think well, that is the only morality.

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 Descartes, and in that of St. Augustine, who said the same thing twelve hundred years before.

All of our dignity consists in thought. Let us endeavor then to think well; this is the principle of morality.

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.

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.

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.

Man is obviously made for thinking. Therein lies all his dignity and his merit; and his whole duty is to think as he ought.

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.

Being unable to cure death, wretchedness, and ignorance, men have decided, in order to be happy, not to think about such things.

The end point of rationality is to demonstrate the limits of rationality.