Blaise Pascal Quotations | Page 7

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.

We must kill them in war, just because they live beyond the river. If they lived on this side, we would be called murderers.

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

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.

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.

The war existing between the senses and reason.

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.

The Christian's God does not consist merely of a God who is the author of mathematical truths and the order of elements... But a God of love and consolation.

We like to be deceived.

What a strange vanity painting is; it attracts admiration by resembling the original, we do not admire.

Imagination is the deceptive part in man, the mistress of error and falsehood.

Love has no age as it is always renewing itself.

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.

No soul of high estate can take pleasure in slander. It betrays a weakness.

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.

It is right that what is just should be obeyed. It is necessary that what is strongest should be obeyed.

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.

Between us, and Hell or Heaven, there is only life between the two, which is the most fragile thing in the world. Variant: Between us and heaven or hell there is only life, which is the frailest thing in the world.

To find recreation in amusement is not happiness.

Things are always at their best in their beginning.

All mankind's troubles are caused by one single thing, which is their inability to sit quietly.

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.

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!

All sorrow has its root in man's inability to sit quiet in a room by himself.

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

A man does not show his greatness by being at one extremity, but rather by touching both at once.

We run heedlessly into the abyss after putting something in front of us to stop us from seeing it.

Symmetry is what we see at a glance.

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

Look for the truth, it wants to be found....

Apart from Jesus Christ, we do not know what is our life, nor our death, nor God, nor ourselves.

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.

All this visible world is but an imperceptible point in the ample bosom of nature.

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

Eloquence is the painting of thought ...

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.

Our natures lie in motion, without which we die.

All I know is that I must soon die, but what I know least is this very death which I cannot escape.

Custom determines what is agreeable.

By thought I embrace the universe.

Vanity is illustrated in the cause and effect of love, as in the case of Cleopatra.

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

Custom creates the whole of equity, for the simple reason that it is accepted.

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.

Most of man's trouble comes from his inability to be still.

The last thing we decide in writing a book is what to put first.

The best defense against logic is ignorance.

Ugly deeds are most estimable when hidden.

What a chimera then is man. What a novelty! What a monster... what a contradiction, what a prodigy

It is superstitious to put one's hopes in formalities, but arrogant to refuse to submit to them.

Those whom we call ancient were really new in all things, and properly constituted the infancy of mankind.

The sole cause of all human misery is the inability of people to sit quietly in their rooms.

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 remote from it?

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 the consummation of his difficulties, and yet it is his very being.

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...?

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.

Our notion of symmetry is derived form the human face. Hence, we demand symmetry horizontally and in breadth only, not vertically nor in depth.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Excuse me, pray." Without that excuse I would not have known there was anything amiss.

Jurisdiction is not given for the sake of the judge, but for that of the litigant.

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.

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.

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.

All the trouble in the world is due to the fact that man cannot sit still in a room.

I should not be a Christian but for the miracles.

(Man,) the glory and the scandal of the universe.

Everything that is incomprehensible does not cease to exist.

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.

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.

Law was once introduced without reason, and has become reasonable.

Must we kill to prevent there being any wicked? This is to make both parties wicked instead of one.

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.

How shall one who is so weak in his childhood become really strong when he grows older? We only change our fancies.

Force rules the world-not opinion; but it is opinion that makes use of force.

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.

If there were only one religion, God would indeed be manifest.

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

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.

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.

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.

Education produces natural intuitions, and natural intuitions are erased by education.

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

Good deeds, when concealed, are the most admirable.

Rivers are highways that move on and bear us whither we wish to go.

How vain painting is-we admire the realistic depiction of objects which in their original state we don't admire at all.

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

The stream is always purer at its source.

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?

The only shame is to have none.

The serene, silent beauty of a holy life is the most powerful influence in the world, next to the night of God.

Opinion is the queen of the world.

they do not know that they seek only the chase and not the quarry.

Let each of us examine his thoughts

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.

Everything that is written merely to please the author is worthless.

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.