Blaise Pascal Quotes

We have an idea of truth, invincible to all scepticism.

All evil stems from this-that we do. Know how to handle your solitude.

Each one is all in all to himself; for being dead, all is dead to him.

Eloquence is the painting of thought.

Not to be mad is another form of madness

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

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

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

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

All that tends not to charity is figurative. The sole aim of the Scripture is charity.

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?

Nothing is so conformable to reason as to disavow reason.

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.

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.

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.

The sum of a man's problems come from his inability to be alone in a silent room.

Civil wars are the greatest of evils. They are inevitable, if we wish to reward merit, for all will say that they are meritorious.

Do you wish people to speak well of you? Then do not speak at all yourself.

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!

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.

Dans une grande a" me tout est grand. In a great soul everything isgreat.

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.

Admiration spoils all from infancy.

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.

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.

Those honor nature well, who teach that she can speak on everything...

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

I should not be a Christian but for the miracles.

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.

Our natures lie in motion, without which we die.

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.

By thought I embrace the universe.

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

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

It is an appalling thing to feel all one possesses drain away.

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.

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. . . .

An advocate who has been well paid in advance will find the cause he is pleading all the more just.

Everything that is incomprehensible does not, however, cease to exist.

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

We are never in search of things, but always in search of the search.

All the miseries of mankind come from one thing, not knowing how to remain alone.

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.

Notre nature est dans le mouvement; le repos entier est la mort. Our nature consists in movement; absolute rest is death.

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.

What are our natural principles but principles of custom?

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.

Condition de l'homme: inconstance, ennui, inquie tude. Man's condition. Inconstancy, boredom, anxiety.

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.

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.