Philosopher · French · 1623 – 1662 · 129 quotes
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
Philosopher · French · 1623 – 1662
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.
If you gain, you gain all. If you lose, you lose nothing. Wager then, without hesitation, that He exists.
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?
All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.
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.
Atheism shows strength of mind, but only to a certain degree.
Nothing is so intolerable to man as being fully at rest, without a passion, without business, without entertainment, without care.
To have no time for philosophy is to be a true philosopher.
Since we cannot know all that there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything.
Justice without force is powerless; force without justice is tyrannical.
The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.
When we see a natural style, we are astonished and charmed; for we expected to see an author, and we find a person.
We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end.
Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much.
There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who think they are sinners and the sinners who think they are righteous.
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.
Small minds are concerned with the extraordinary, great minds with the ordinary.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Faith embraces many truths which seem to contradict each other.
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.
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.
It is not good to be too free. It is not good to have everything one wants.
Nothing is as approved as mediocrity, the majority has established it and it fixes it fangs on whatever gets beyond it either way.
Do you wish people to think well of you? Don't speak well of yourself.
It is the fight alone that pleases us, not the victory.
We only consult the ear because the heart is wanting.
Nothing gives rest but the sincere search for truth.
Earnestness is enthusiasm tempered by reason.
Man's greatness lies in his power of thought.
The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.
Little things console us because little things afflict us.
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.
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.
Eloquence is a painting of the thoughts.
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.
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.
You always admire what you really don't understand.
All of our reasoning ends in surrender to feeling.
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!
A trifle consoles us, for a trifle distresses us.
Noble deeds that are concealed are most esteemed.
The struggle alone pleases us, not the victory.
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.
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.
