Blaise Pascal Quotes
All men naturally hate one another. I hold it a fact, that if men knew exactly what one says of the other, there would not be four friends in the world.
Nothing fortifies scepticism more than that there are some who are not sceptics; if all were so, they would be wrong.
The present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter.
Nothing is good but mediocrity. The majority has settled that, and finds fault with him who escapes it at whichever end... To leave the mean is to abandon humanity.
Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness.
We are fools to depend upon the society of our fellow-men. Wretched as we are, powerless as we are, they will not aid us; we shall die alone.
The consciousness of the falsity of present pleasures, and the ignorance of the vanity of absent pleasures, cause inconstancy.
The serene, silent beauty of a holy life is the most powerful influence in the world, next to the night of God.
The art of revolutionizing and overturning states is to undermine established customs, by going back to their origin, in order to mark their want of justice.
Not the zeal alone of those who seek Him proves God, but the blindness of those who seek Him not.
How shall one who is so weak in his childhood become really strong when he grows older? We only change our fancies.
By space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an atom; by thought I comprehend the world.
Console-toi, tu ne me chercherais pas si tu ne m'avais trouve . Comfort yourself.You would not seek me if you had not found me.
Il est non seulement impossible, mais inutile de conna|"tre Dieu sans Je sus-Christ. It is not only impossible, but also useless to recognize God without Jesus.
Our notion of symmetry is derived form the human face. Hence, we demand symmetry horizontally and in breadth only, not vertically nor in depth.
That we must love one God only is a thing so evident that it does not require miracles to prove it.
Faith affirms many things, respecting which the senses are silent, but nothing that they deny. It is superior, but never opposed to their testimony
Reverend Fathers, my letters did not usually follow each other at such close intervals, nor were they so long.... This one would not be so long had I but the leisure to make it shorter.
The more intelligence one has, the more people one finds original. Commonplace people see no difference between men.
Concupiscence and force are the source of all our actions; concupiscence causes voluntary actions, force involuntary ones.
It is natural for the mind to believe and for the will to love; so that, for want of true objects, they must attach themselves to false.
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.
Amusement allures and deceives us and leads us down imperceptibly in thoughtlessness to the grave
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.
How vain painting is, exciting admiration by its resemblance to things of which we do not admire the originals.
Those who make antitheses by forcing the sense are like men who make false windows for the sake of symmetry. Their rule is not to speak justly, but to make accurate figures.
Extremes are for us as if they were not, and as if we were not in regard to them; they escape from us, or we from them.
