Blaise Pascal Quotes

Nothing is thoroughly approved but mediocrity. The majority has established this, and it fixes its fangs on whatever gets beyond it either way.

I maintain that, if everyone knew what others said about him, there would not be four friends in the world.

Silence. All human unhappiness comes from not knowing how to stay quietly in a room.

It is not certain that everything is uncertain.

Continuous eloquence wearies.

What a vast difference there is between knowing God and loving Him.

Kind words produce their images on men's souls.

Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just.

The sensitivity of men to small matters, and their indifference to great ones, indicates a strange inversion.

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

Jesus Christ came to tell men that they have no enemies but themselves.

I feel engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces whereof I know nothing, and which know nothing of me, I am terrified The eternal silence of these infinite spaces alarms me.

Any unity which doesn't have its origin in the multitudes is tyranny.

A jester, a bad character.

Few friendships would survive if each one knew what his friend says of him behind his back.

The more intelligent a man is, the more originality he discovers in others.

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

Rivers are roads that move and carry us whither we wish to go. [Fr., Les rivieres sont des chemins qui marchant et qui portent ou l'on veut aller.]

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

He who cannot believe is cursed, for he reveals by his unbelief that God has not chosen to give him grace.

Having been unable to strengthen justice, we have justified strength.

Nothing gives rest but the sincere search for truth.

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

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 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.

When we are in love we seem to ourselves quite different from what we were before.

Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere.

If I had more time I would write a shorter letter.

Too much and too little wine. Give him none, he cannot find truth; give him too much, the same.

Fear not, provided you fear; but if you fear not, then fear.

The only shame is to have none.

One must have deeper motives and judge everything accordingly, but go on talking like an ordinary person.

If you do not love too much, you do not love enough.

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

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.

Rivers are roads which move, and which carry us whither we desire to go.

Too much pleasure disagrees with us. Too many concords are annoying in music; too many benefits irritate us; we wish to have the wherewithal to overpay our debts.

Evil is easy, and has infinite forms.

Everyone, without exception, is searching for happiness.

If a man is not made for God, why is he happy only in God?

If our condition were truly happy, we would not need diversion from thinking of it in order to make ourselves happy.

All of our reasoning ends in surrender to feeling.

To make a man a saint, it must indeed be by grace; and whoever doubts this does not know what a saint is, or a man.

There are two equally dangerous extremes-to shut reason out, and to let nothing else in.

Little things console us because little things afflict us.

All the troubles of life come upon us because we refuse to sit quietly for a while each day in our rooms.

It is the conduct of God, who disposes all things kindly, to put religion into the mind by reason, and into the heart by grace.

A mere trifle consoles us, for a mere trifle distresses us.

It is impossible on reasonable grounds to disbelieve miracles.

Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer the same persons. Neither the offender nor the offended are any more themselves.