Blaise Pascal Quotes

Which is the more believable of the two, Moses or China?

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

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 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.

We must make good people wish that the Christian faith were true, and then show that it is.

All our troubles come from not being able to be alone.

To scorn philosophy is truly to philosophize.

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.

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.

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.

The great mass of people judge well of things, for they are in natural ignorance, which is man's true state.

To call a king "Prince" is pleasing, because it diminishes his rank.

There would be too great darkness, if truth had not visible signs.

However vast a man's spiritual resources, he is capable of but one great passion.

Meanings receive their dignity from words instead of giving it to them.

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.

If man should commence by studying himself, he would see how impossible it is to go further.

That a religion may be true, it must have knowledge of our nature.

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

It is incomprehensible that God should exist, and it is incomprehensible that he should not exist.

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.

Le moi est ha|«s sable. The self is hateful.

Our reason is always disappointed by the inconstancy of appearances.

Some vices only lay hold of us by means of others, and these, like branches, fall on removal of the trunk.

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.

Two similar faces, neither of which alone causes laughter, use laughter when they are together, by their resemblance.

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.

Making fun of philosophy is really philosophising.

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.

Equality of possessions is no doubt right, but, as men could not make might obey right, they have made right obey might.

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.

It is not possible to have reasonable grounds for not believing in miracles.

Seeing too much to deny and too little to be sure, I am in a state to be pitied.

The last thing that we find in making a book is to know what we must put first.

Most of the evils of life arise from man's being unable to sit still in a room.

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.

The weakness of human reason appears more evidently in those who know it not than in those who know it.

Voluptuousness, like justice, is blind, but that is the only resemblance between them.

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.

Eloquence is painted thought, and thus those who, after having painted it, add somewhat more, make a picture, not a portrait.

Eloquence.— We need both what is pleasing and what is real, but that which pleases must itself be drawn from the true.

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.

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

The heart has its reasons which reason knows not.

I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter.", 1657)

I made this [letter] very long, because I did not have the leisure to make it shorter.

To make light of philosophy is to be a true philosopher.

Δύο υπερβολές : ν' αποκλείουμε το Λόγο, και να μη δεχόμαστε παρά μόνο το Λόγο.

He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God's providence to lead him aright

There are three sources of belief: reason, custom, inspiration.