Blaise Pascal Quotes
Nature has some perfections to show that she is the image of God, and some defects to show that she is only His image.
We sometimes learn more from the sight of evil than from an example of good; and it is well to accustom ourselves to profit by the evil which is so common, while that which is good is so rare.
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.
The last function of reason is to recognize that there are an infinity of things which surpass it.
To doubt is a misfortune, but to seek when in doubt is an indispensable duty. So he who doubts and seeks not is at once unfortunate and unfair.
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.
Imagination magnifies small objects with fantastic exaggeration until they fill our soul, and with bold insolence cuts down great things to its own size, as when speaking of God.
It is right that what is just should be obeyed. It is necessary that what is strongest should be obeyed.
The imagination disposes of everything. It creates beauty, justice, and happiness, which are the whole of the world.
If you want to be a real seeker of truth, you need to, at least once in your lifetime, doubt in, as much as it's possible, in everything.
The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men.
The sole cause of man's unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.
Beauty is a harmonious relation between something in our nature and the quality of the object which delights us.
Happiness can be found neither in ourselves nor in external things, but in God and in ourselves as united to him.
Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.
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...?
To be mistaken in believing that the Christian religion is true is no great loss to anyone; but how dreadful to be mistaken in believing it to be false!
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.
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?
Those who are clever in imagination are far more pleased with themselves than prudent men could reasonably be.
Curiosity is nothing more than vanity. More often than not we only seek knowledge to show it off.
We run heedlessly into the abyss after putting something in front of us to stop us from seeing it.
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.
The multitude which is not brought to act as a unity, is confusion. That unity which has not its origin in the multitude is tyranny.
God only pours out his light into the mind after having subdued the rebellion of the will by an altogether heavenly gentleness which charms and wins it.
God has given us evidence sufficiently clear to convince those with an open heart and mind.
We view things not only from different sides, but with different eyes; we have no wish to find them alike.
All the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber.
All our life passes in this way: we seek rest by struggling against certain obstacles, and once they are overcome, rest proves intolerable because of the boredom it produces.
A man does not show his greatness by being at one extremity, but rather by touching both at once.
What a strange vanity painting is; it attracts admiration by resembling the original, we do not admire.
When a soldier complains of his hard life (or a labourer, etc.) try giving him nothing to do.