Quotes from Blaise Pascal

No other religion has proposed that we should hate ourselves. No other religion therefore can please those who hate themselves and seek a being who is really worthy of love. And if they had never [before] heard of the religion of a humiliated God, they would at once embrace it.

l'silence eternal de ces espaces infinis m'effraie

Everything which does not lead to charity is figurative. The sole object of Scripture is charity. Everything that does not lead to this sole good is figurative. For, since there is only one goal, everything that does not lead to it explicitly is figurative.

Bu sonsuz mekânlar?n ebedi suskunluÄŸu beni ürkütüyor.

The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know.

Nu m-ai fi cautat, daca nu m-ai fi gasit

They say that eclipses are portents of disaster, because disasters are so common, and misfortune occurs often enough for these forecasts to be right, whereas if they said that eclipses were portents of good fortune they would often be wrong.

We do not display greatness by going to one extreme, but in touching both at once, and filling all the intervening space.

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

Since we cannot be universal and know all that is to be known of everything, we ought to know a little about everything. For it is far better to know something about everything than to know all about one thing.

Eloquence.—It requires the pleasant and the real; but the pleasant must itself be drawn from the true.

Însa în cazul în care universul l-ar strivi, omul ar fi înca mai nobil decât ceea ce-l ucide; pentru ca el stie ca moare; iar avantajul pe care universul îl are asupra lui, acest univers nu-l cunoaste.

Omul este asa de mare, încât maretia lui reiese si din aceea ca el se stie nenorocit.

We never seek things for themselves, but for the search.

S'il se vante, je l'abaisse, S'il s'abaisse, je le vante; Et le contredis toujours, Jusqu'à ce qu'il comprenne Qu'il est un monstre incompréhensible.

The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of... We know the truth not only by the reason, but by the heart

To deny, to believe, and to doubt well, are to a man what the race is to a horse.

The art of opposition and of revolution is to unsettle established customs, sounding them even to their source, to point out their want of authority and justice.

For a religion to be true it must have known our nature; it must have known its greatness and smallness, and the reason for both. What other religion but Christianity has known this?

When a natural discourse paints a passion or an effect, one feels within oneself the truth of what one reads, which was there before, although one did not know it. Hence one is inclined to love him who makes us feel it, for he has not shown us his own riches, but ours.

It may be that there are such things as true proofs, but it is not certain.

to think well; this is the principle of morality.

People often mistake their imagination for their heart, & so often are convinced they are converted as soon as they start thinking of becoming converted.

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