Blaise Pascal Quotes

It is not the length of years but a multitude of generations that makes things obscure. For truth is only perverted when men change. ~ Blaise Pascal

Jesus Christ and St Paul possess the order of charity, not of the mind, for they wished to humble, not to teach. ~ Blaise Pascal

We show greatness, not by being at one extreme, but by touching both at once and occupying all the space in between. ~ Blaise Pascal

Wisdom leads us back to childhood. Except ye become as little children. ~ Blaise Pascal

We must learn our limits. We are all something, but none of us are everything. ~ Blaise Pascal

If man made himself the first object of study, he would see how incapable he is of going further. How can a part know the whole? ~ Blaise Pascal

Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for miseries and yet it is itself the greatest of our miseries. ~ Blaise Pascal

St. Augustine teaches us that there is in each man a Serpent, an Eve, and an Adam. Our senses and natural propensities are the Serpent; the excitable desire is the Eve; and reason is the Adam. Our nature tempts us perpetually; criminal desire is often excited; but sin is not completed till reason consents. ~ Blaise Pascal

Through space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an atom; through thought I comprehend the world. ~ Blaise Pascal

Man is to himself the most wonderful object in nature; for he cannot conceive what the body is, still less what the mind is, and least of all how a body should be united to a mind. This is
the consummation of his difficulties, and yet it is his very being. ~ Blaise Pascal

All things can be deadly to us, even the things made to serve us; as in nature walls can kill us, and stairs can kill us, if we do not walk circumspectly. ~ Blaise Pascal

It is incomprehensible that God should exist, and it is incomprehensible that he should not exist. ~ Blaise Pascal

Man finds nothing so intolerable as to be in a state of complete rest, without passions, without occupation, without diversion, without effort. Then he feels his nullity, loneliness, inadequacy, dependence, helplessness, emptiness. ~ Blaise Pascal

One must have deeper motives and judge everything accordingly, but go on talking like an ordinary person. ~ Blaise Pascal

Amusement allures and deceives us and leads us down imperceptibly in thoughtlessness to the grave ~ Blaise Pascal

It is natural for the mind to believe, and for the will to love; [47] so that, for want of true objects, they must attach themselves to false. ~ Blaise Pascal

All our reasoning comes down to surrendering to feeling. ~ Blaise Pascal

Great and small suffer the same mishaps. ~ Blaise Pascal

That a religion may be true, it must have knowledge of our nature. ~ Blaise Pascal

Instinct teaches us to look for happiness outside ourselves. ~ Blaise Pascal

Nothing is so important to man as his own state; nothing is so formidable to him as eternity. And thus it is unnatural that thereshould be men indifferent to the loss of their existence and to the perils of everlasting suffering. ~ Blaise Pascal

Christianity is strange: it requires human beings to recognize that they are vile and even abominable. ~ Blaise Pascal

May God never abandon me. ~ Blaise Pascal

At the centre of every human being is a God-shaped vacuum which can only be filled by Jesus Christ. ~ Blaise Pascal

The brutes do not admire each other. A horse does not admire his companion. Not that there is no rivalry between them in a race, but that is of no consequence; for, when in the stable, the heaviest and most ill-formed does not give up his oats to another as men would have others do to them. Their virtue is satisfied with itself. ~ Blaise Pascal

Atheism shows strength of mind, but only to a certain degree. ~ Blaise Pascal

We are only falsehood, duplicity, contradiction; we both conceal and disguise ourselves from ourselves. ~ Blaise Pascal

To scorn philosophy is truly to philosophize. ~ Blaise Pascal

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. ~ Blaise Pascal

To think well; this is the principle of morality. ~ Blaise Pascal

They do not know that they seek only the chase and not the quarry. ~ Blaise Pascal

If we look at our work immediately after completing it, we are still too involved; if too long afterwards, we cannot pick up the thread again. It ~ Blaise Pascal

Eloquence; it requires the pleasant and the real; but the pleasant must itself be drawn from the true. ~ Blaise Pascal

Our natures lie in motion, without which we die. ~ Blaise Pascal

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. ~ Blaise Pascal

Any unity which doesn't have its origin in the multitudes is tyranny. ~ Blaise Pascal

Symmetry is what we see at a glance. ~ Blaise Pascal

There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus. ~ Blaise Pascal

All the trouble in the world is due to the fact that man cannot sit still in a room. ~ Blaise Pascal

All the miseries of mankind come from one thing, not knowing how to remain alone. ~ Blaise Pascal

Finally, let them recognise that there are two kinds of people one can call reasonable; those who serve God with all their heart because they know Him, and those who seek Him with all their heart because they do not know Him. ~ Blaise Pascal

What then is to become of man? Will he be the equal of god or the beasts? What a terrifying distance! What then shall he be? Who cannot see from all this that man is lost, that he has fallen from his place, that he anxiously seeks it, and cannot find it again? And who then is to direct him there? The greatest men have failed. ~ Blaise Pascal

Let us weigh up the gain and the loss involved in calling heads that God exists. Let us assess the two cases: if you win you win everything, if you lose you lose nothing. Do not hesitate then; wager that he does exist. ~ Blaise Pascal

Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists. ~ Blaise Pascal

We run carelessly over the precipice after having put something in front of us to prevent us seeing it. ~ Blaise Pascal

Earthly things must be known to be loved; heavenly things must be loved to be known. ~ Blaise Pascal

We have an idea of truth, invincible to all scepticism. ~ Blaise Pascal

It is certain that those who have the living faith in their hearts see at once that all existence is none other than the work of the God whom they adore. But for those in whom this light is extinguished, [if we were to show them our proofs of the existence of God] nothing is more calculated to arouse their contempt ... ~ Blaise Pascal

How hollow is the heart of man, and how full of excrement! ~ Blaise Pascal

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

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. ~ Blaise Pascal

The pagans do not know God, and love only the earth. The Jews know the true God, and love only the earth. The Christians know the true God, and do not love the earth. ~ Blaise Pascal

Faith is different from proof; the latter is human, the former is a Gift from God. ~ Blaise Pascal

Kepler's discovery would not have been possible without the doctrine of conics. Now contemporaries of Kepler - such penetrating minds as Descartes and Pascal - were abandoning the study of geometry ... because they said it was so UTTERLY USELESS. There was the future of the human race almost trembling in the balance; for had not the geometry of conic sections already been worked out in large measure, and had their opinion that only sciences apparently useful ought to be pursued, the nineteenth century would have had none of those characters which distinguish it from the ancien régime. ~ Charles Sanders Peirce

Kind words do not cost much. They never blister the tongue or lips. They make other people good-natured. They also produce their own image on men's souls, and a beautiful image it is. ~ Blaise Pascal

Philosophers.-We are full of things which take us out of ourselves. ~ Blaise Pascal

Silence. All human unhappiness comes from not knowing how to stay quietly in a room. ~ Blaise Pascal

The sweetness of glory is so great that, join it to what we will, even to death, we love it. ~ Blaise Pascal

La dernière chose qu'on trouve en faisant un ouvrage est de savoir celle qu'il faut mettre la première. (The last thing one settles in writing a book is what one should put in first.) ~ Blaise Pascal

The last thing that we find in making a book is to know what we must put first. ~ Blaise Pascal

Hence it comes that men so much love noise and stir; hence it comes that the prison is so horrible a punishment; hence it comes that the pleasure of solitude is a thing incomprehensible. And it is in fact the greatest source of happiness in the condition of kings, that men try incessantly to divert them, and to procure for them all kinds of pleasures. ~ Blaise Pascal

Law was once introduced without reason, and has become reasonable. ~ Blaise Pascal

No man ever believes with a true and saving faith unless God incline his heart, and no man when God does incline his heart can refrain from believing. ~ Blaise Pascal

It is not only old and early impressions that deceive us; the charms of novelty have the same power. ~ Blaise Pascal

Let a man choose what condition he will, and let him accumulate around him all the goods and gratifications seemingly calculated to make him happy in it; if that man is left at any time without occupation or amusement, and reflects on what he is, the meagre, languid felicity of his present lot will not bear him up. He will turn necessarily to gloomy anticipations of the future; and unless his occupation calls him out of himself, he is inevitably wretched. ~ Blaise Pascal

We never keep to the present. We recall the past; we anticipate the future as if we found it too slow in coming and were trying to hurry it up, or we recall the past as if to stay its too rapid flight. We are so unwise that we wander about in times that do not belong to us, and do not think of the only one that does; so vain that we dream of times that are not and blindly flee the only one that is. The fact is the present usually hurts. ~ Blaise Pascal

It is certain that the soul is either mortal or immortal. The decision of this question must make a total difference in the principles of morals. Yet philosophers have arranged their moral system entirely independent of this. What an extraordinary blindness! ~ Blaise Pascal

This religion so great in miracles, in men holy, pure and irreproachable, in scholars, great witnesses and martyrs, established kings - David - Isaiah, a prince of the blood; so great in knowledge, after displaying all its miracles and all its wisdom, rejects it all and says that it offers neither wisdom nor signs, but only the Cross and folly. ~ Blaise Pascal

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. ~ Blaise Pascal

There is some pleasure in being on board a ship battered by storms when one is certain of not perishing. ~ Blaise Pascal

If the foot had never realized it belonged to the body, & that there never was a body on which it depended, if it had only known & loved itself & then came to know that it really belonged to the body on which it depended, think of the regret & shame it would feel for its past existence. It would recognize how useless it had been to the body in spite of the life poured into it, & how it would have been destroyed if the body had rejected it & cut it off as the foot cut itself off from the body! How it would have desired earnestly to be kept on! How obediently it would let itself be governed by the will in charge of the body, to the point of being amputated if necessary! Otherwise it would cease to a member, for every member must be ready to perish for the sake of the whole, for whose sake alone exists. ~ Blaise Pascal

There are plenty of maxims in the world; all that remains is to apply them. ~ Blaise Pascal

The whole title by which you possess your property, is not a title of nature but of a human institution. ~ Blaise Pascal

To go beyond the bounds of moderation is to outrage humanity. ~ Blaise Pascal

Nature is an infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. ~ Blaise Pascal

This is what I see, and what troubles me. I look on all sides, and everywhere I see nothing but obscurity. Nature offers me nothing that is not a matter of doubt and disquiet. ~ Blaise Pascal

Perfect clarity would profit the intellect but damage the will. ~ Blaise Pascal

Vanity is so firmly anchored in man's heart that a soldier, a camp follower, a cook or a porter will boast and expect admirers, and even philosophers want them; those who write against them want to enjoy the prestige of having written well, those who read them want the prestige of having read them, and perhaps I who write this want the same thing. ~ Blaise Pascal

At the far end of this infinite distance a coin is being spun which will come down heads or tails. How will you wager? Reason cannot make you choose either, reason cannot prove either wrong. ~ Blaise Pascal

It is not permitted to the most equitable of men to be a judge in his own cause. ~ Blaise Pascal

We must kill them in war, just because they live beyond the river. If they lived on this side, we would be called murderers. ~ Blaise Pascal

Knowing God without knowing our wretchedness leads to pride. Knowing our wretchedness without knowing God leads to despair. Knowing Jesus Christ is the middle course, because in him we find both God and our wretchedness. ~ Blaise Pascal

What a Chimera is man! What a novelty, a monster, a chaos, a contradiction, a prodigy! Judge of all things, an imbecile worm; depository of truth, and sewer of error and doubt; the glory and refuse of the universe. ~ Blaise Pascal

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! ~ Blaise Pascal

Bless yourself with holy water, have Masses said, and so on; by a simple and natural process this will make you believe, and will dull you - will quiet your proudly critical intellect. ~ Blaise Pascal

Nothing strengthens the case for scepticism more than the fact that there are people who are not sceptics. If they all were, they would be wrong. ~ Blaise Pascal

Look for the truth, it wants to be found ... ~ Blaise Pascal

Noble deeds that are concealed are most esteemed. ~ Blaise Pascal

The manner in which Epictetus, Montaigne, and Salomon de Tultie wrote, is the most usual, the most suggestive, the most remembered, and the oftener quoted; because it is entirely composed of thoughts born from the common talk of life. ~ Blaise Pascal

Force rules the world-not opinion; but it is opinion that makes use of force. ~ Blaise Pascal

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. ~ Blaise Pascal

The sole cause of all human misery is the inability of people to sit quietly in their rooms. ~ Blaise Pascal

In every action we must look beyond the action at our past, present and future state, and at others whom it affects, and see the relations of all these things. ~ Blaise Pascal

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. ~ Blaise Pascal

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. ~ Blaise Pascal

A little thing comforts us because a little thing afflicts us. ~ Blaise Pascal

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. ~ Blaise Pascal

We are generally the better persuaded by the reasons we discover ourselves than by those given to us by others. ~ Blaise Pascal

A true friend is so great an advantage, even for the greatest lords, in order that he may speak well of them, and back them in their absence, that they should do all to have one. ~ Blaise Pascal

The last act is bloody, however fine the rest of the play ~ Blaise Pascal