Quotes About Pascal

aquella frase de Pascal de que el corazón tiene razones que la razón no entiende.

Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is, but let us consider the two possibilities. If you gain, you gain all if you lose you lose nothing. Hesitate not, then, to wager that He is.

Let us weigh the gain and the loss, in wagering that God is. Consider these alternatives: if you win, you win all, if you lose you lose nothing. Do not hesitate, then, to wager that he is.

Truth is so obscure in these times and falsehood so established that unless one loves the truth, he cannot know it.

It is not our task to secure the triumph of truth, but merely to fight on its behalf.

All err the more dangerously because each follows a truth. Their mistake lies not in following a falsehood but in not following another truth.

Pascal, Faith is God made sensible to the heart, then

There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who think they are sinners and the sinners who think they are righteous.

By space the universe encompasses me and swallows me up like an atom; by thought I comprehend the world.

No religion except ours has taught that man is born in sin; none of the philosophical sects has admitted it; none therefore has spoken the truth

I feel that it is possible that I might never have existed, for my self consists in thought; therefore I who think would never have been if my mother had been killed before I had come to life; therefore I am not a necessary being. I am not eternal or infinite either…

God is or He is not. But to which side shall we incline? Let us weigh the gain and the lose in wagering that God is. Let us estimate the two changes. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, lose nothing. Wager then without any hesitation that He is

All men naturally hate one another. They employ lust as far as possible in the service of the public weal. But this is only a pretence and a false image of love; for at bottom it is only hate.

But Pascal is one of those writers who will be and who must be studied afresh by men in every generation. It is not he who changes, but we who change. It is not our knowledge of him that increases, but our world that alters and our attitudes towards it.

128] Two things teach man about his whole nature: instinct and experience.

I do not know whether God exists, but I know that I have nothing to gain from being an atheist if he does not exist, whereas I have plenty to lose if he does. Hence, this justifies my belief in God.

172] The way of God, who disposes all things with gentleness, is to instil religion into our minds with reasoned arguments and into our hearts with grace, but attempting to instil it into hearts and minds with force and threats is to instil not religion but terror. Terror rather than religion.

not in order to become wiser, but only in order to prove that they know them; and these are the most senseless of the band

115] Immateriality of the soul. When philosophers have subdued their passions, what material substance has managed to achieve this?

Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.

But what is nature? For is custom not natural? I am much afraid that nature is itself only a first custom, as custom is a second nature.

quod quum naturae et legi impossibile est, possibile facit, immo et præstat gratia Dei per Christum.

The majority of mankind is lazy-minded, incurious, absorbed in vanities, and tepid in emotion, and is therefore incapable of either much doubt or much faith; and when the ordinary man calls himself a sceptic or an unbeliever, that is ordinarily a simple pose, cloaking a disinclination to think anything out to a conclusion. (Introduction to Pascal's Pensées)

In the midst of a full-blown disaster – with the house apparently self-destructing around them – Lila was calmly filing her nails.