Quotes from Blaise Pascal

and the same man who spends so many days and nights in fury and despair at losing some office or at some imaginary affront to his honour is the very one who knows that he is going to lose everything through death and feels neither anxiety nor emotion.

The eternal being exists for ever if he once exists.

Make religion attractive, make good men wish it were true, and then show that it is. Worthy of reverence because it really understands human nature. Attractive because it promises true good.

Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte.

When we come across a natural style, we are surprised and delighted; for we expected an author, and we find a man.

Just as all things speak about God to those that know Him, and reveal Him to those that love Him, they also hide Him from all those that neither seek nor know Him.

Wisdom is a return to childhood.

Knowing God without knowing our own wretchedness makes for pride. Knowing our own wretchedness without knowing God makes for despair. Knowing Jesus Christ strikes the balance because he shows us both God and our own wretchedness.

What must I do? I see nothing but obscurities on every side.' 'Shall I believe I am nothing? Shall I believe I am God?

They prefer death to peace, others prefer death to war. Any opinion can be preferred to life, which it seems so natural to love dearly.

We know that we are not dreaming, but, however unable we may be to prove it rationally, our inability proves nothing but the weakness of our reason, and not the uncertainty of all our knowledge as they maintain.

One has followed the other in an endless circle, for it is certain that as man's insight increases so he finds both wretchedness and greatness within himself. In a word man knows he is wretched. Thus he is wretched because he is so, but he is truly great because he knows it.

I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter.

All that is made perfect by progress perishes also by progress.

I do not admire the excess of a virtue as of valour, except I see at the same time the excess of the opposite virtue, as in Epaminondas, who had the greatest valour and the greatest kindness. For otherwise it is not to rise, it is to fall. We do not display greatness by going to one extreme, but in touching both at once, and filling all the intervening space.

The only religion which is against nature, against common sense and against our pleasures is the only one which has always existed.

Do not be astonished to see simple people believing without argument. God makes them love him and hate themselves. He inclines their hearts to believe. We shall never believe, with an effective belief and faith, unless God inclines our hearts.

Thought constitutes the greatness of man. Man is a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed.

We seek rest in a struggle against some obstacles. And when we have overcome these, rest proves unbearable because of the boredom it produces...

Kind words produce their images on men's souls.

The end point of rationality is to demonstrate the limits of rationality

The Stoics say, Retire within yourselves; it is there you will find your rest. And that is not true. Others say, Go out of yourselves; seek happiness in amusement. And this is not true. Illness comes. Happiness is neither without us nor within us. It is in God, both without us and within us.

All their principles are true, sceptics, stoics, atheists, etc...but their conclusions are false, because the contrary principles are also true.

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