Top 748 Quotes & Sayings by Blaise Pascal - Page 4

All the maxims have been written. It only remains to put them into practice.

There are two excesses: to exclude reason, to admit nothing but reason. The supreme achievement of reason is to realise that there is a limit to reason. Reason's last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it. It is merely feeble if it does not go as far as to realise that.

There are people who lie simply for the sake of lying.

All our dignity lies in our thoughts.

Clarity of mind means clarity of passion, too; this is why a great and clear mind loves ardently and sees distinctly what it loves.

There is enough light for those who only desire to see, and enough obscurity for those who have a contrary disposition

Reflect on death as in Jesus Christ, not as without Jesus Christ. Without Jesus Christ it is dreadful, it is alarming, it is the terror of nature. In Jesus Christ it is fair and lovely, it is good and holy, it is the joy of saints.

Kind words produce their images on men's souls.

Those are weaklings who know the truth and uphold it as long as it suits their purpose, and then abandon it.

We must keep our thought secret, and judge everything by it, while talking like the people.

When everyone is moving towards depravity, no one seems to be moving, but if someone stops he shows up the others who are rushing on, by acting as a fixed point.

We know that there is an infinite, and we know not its nature. As we know it to be false that numbers are finite, it is therefore true that there is a numerical infinity. But we know not of what kind; it is untrue that it is even, untrue that it is odd; for the addition of a unit does not change its nature; yet it is a number, and every number is odd or even (this certainly holds of every finite number). Thus we may quite well know that there is a God without knowing what He is.

Parents fear the destruction of natural affection in their children. What is this natural principle so liable to decay? Habit is a second nature, which destroys the first. Why is not custom nature? I suspect that this nature itself is but a first custom, as custom is a second nature.

Nature imitates herself. A grain thrown into good ground brings forth fruit; a principle thrown into a good mind brings forth fruit. Everything is created and conducted by the same Master-the root, the branch, the fruits-the principles, the consequences.

Without Jesus Christ man must be in vice and misery with Jesus Christ man is free from vice and misery in Him is all our virtue and all our happiness. Apart from Him there is but vice, misery, darkness, death, despair.

The more intelligent a man is, the more originality he discovers in others.

Habit is a second nature, which destroys the first.

If we examine our thoughts, we shall find them always occupied with the past or the future.

We know the truth not only through our reason but also through our heart. It is through the latter that we know first principles, and reason, which has nothing to do with it, tries in vain to refute them.

Everyone, without exception, is searching for happiness.

Anyone who found the secret of rejoicing when things go well without being annoyed when they go badly would have found the point.

Good deeds, when concealed, are the most admirable.

If a man is not made for God, why is he happy only in God?

If god does not exist, one loses nothing by believing in him anyway, while if he does exist, one stands to lose everything by not believing.

Instead of complaining that God had hidden himself, you will give Him thanks for having revealed so much of Himself.

What a difficult thing it is to ask someone's advice on a matter without coloring his judgment by the way in which we present our problem.

(Man,) the glory and the scandal of the universe.

Plurality which is not reduced to unity is confusion; unity which does not depend on plurality is tyranny.

No one is discontented at not being a king except a discrowned king ... unhappiness almost invariably indicates the existence of a road not taken, a talent undeveloped, a self not recognized.

Anyone who does not see the vanity of the world is very vain himself. So who does not see it, apart from young people whose lives are all noise, diversions, and thoughts for the future? But take away their diversion and you will see them bored to extinction. Then they feel their nullity without recognizing it, for nothing could be more wretched than to be intolerably depressed as soon as one is reduced to introspection with no means of diversion.

If it is an extraordinary blindness to live without investigating what we are, it is a terrible one to live an evil life, while believing in God

Continuous eloquence wearies.

Having been unable to strengthen justice, we have justified strength.

Wisdom leads us back to childhood.

Being unable to cure death, wretchedness, and ignorance, men have decided, in order to be happy, not to think about such things.

It is the contest that delights us, and not the victory.

Nothing is so intolerable to man as being fully at rest, without passion, without business, without entertainment, without care. It is then that he recognizes that he is empty, insufficient, dependent, ineffectual. From the depths of his soul now comes at once boredom, gloom, sorrow, chagrin, resentment and despair.

Instinct teaches us to look for happiness outside ourselves.

Death itself is less painful when it comes upon us unawares than the bare contemplation of it, even when danger is far distant.

The entire ocean is affected by a single pebble.

Our nature lies in movement; complete calm is death.

Chess is the gymnasium of the mind.

Brave deeds are wasted when hidden.

A man does not show his greatness by being at one extremity, but rather by touching both at once.

Curiosity is only vanity. We usually only want to know something so that we can talk about it.

Dull minds are never either intuitive or mathematical.

Passion cannot be beautiful without excess; one either loves too much or not enough.

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!

Eloquence is a way of saying things in such a way, first, that those to whom we speak may listen to them without pain and with pleasure, and second, that they feel themselves interested, so that self-love leads them more willingly to reflection upon it.

Jesus was in a garden, not of delight as the first Adam, in which he destroyed himself and the whole human race, but in one of agony, in which he saved himself and the whole human race.

We are only troubled by the fears which we, and not nature, give ourselves, for they add to the state in which we are the passions of the state in which we are not.

Faith is a sounder guide than reason. Reason can only go so far, but faith has no limits.

The property of power is to protect.

What part of us feels pleasure? Is it our hand, our arm, our flesh, or our blood? It must obviously be something immaterial.

What can be seen on earth points to neither the total absence nor the obvious presence of divinity, but to the presence of a hidden God. Everything bears this mark.

Fear not, provided you fear; but if you fear not, then fear.

Faith is a gift of God.

If a man loves a woman for her beauty, does he love her? No; for the smallpox, which destroys her beauty without killing her, causes his love to cease. And if any one loves me for my judgment or my memory, does he really love me? No; for I can lose these qualities without ceasing to be.

Man is clearly made to think. It is his whole dignity and his whole merit; and his whole duty is to think as he ought. And the order of thought is to begin with ourselves, and with our Author and our end.

Fashion is a tyrant from which nothing frees us. We must suit ourselves to its fantastic tastes. But being compelled to live under its foolish laws, the wise man is never the first to follow, nor the last to keep it.