A Quote by Blaise Pascal

We desire truth, and find within ourselves only uncertainty. We seek happiness, and find only misery and death. We cannot but desire truth and happiness, and are incapable of certainty or happiness.

Blaise Pascal

Quote Topics

Cannot Certainty Death Desire Find Happiness Incapable Misery Only Ourselves Seek Truth Uncertainty We Cannot Within

Quote Author

Blaise Pascal
French - Philosopher
June 19, 1623 - August 19, 1662

The belief that happiness has to be deserved has led to centuries of pain, guilt, and deception. So firmly have we clung to this single, illusory belief that we've almost forgotten the real truth about happiness. So busy are we trying to deserve happiness that we no longer have much time for ideas such as: Happiness is natural, happiness is a birthright, happiness is free, happiness is a choice, happiness is within, and happiness is being. The moment you believe that happiness has to be deserved, you must toil forevermore.

Robert Holden

It is my observation that all human hearts are the same and that their ultimate desire is also the same. This soul wants happiness, perfect and pure happiness, because only then will all desires end. As long as desire exists misery exists, because with desire there can be no peace.

Rajneesh

When I look at what the world does and where people nowadays believe they can find happiness, I am not sure that that is true happiness. The happiness of these ordinary people seems to consist in slavishly imitating the majority, as if this were their only choice. And yet they all believe they are happy. I cannot decide whether that is happiness or not. Is there such a thing as happiness?

Zhuangzi

Nothing can make you happier than you are. All search for happiness is misery and leads to more misery. The only happiness worth the name is the natural happiness of conscious being.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Therefore, philosophy does not give sense in mind happiness. It keeps in mind the only truth. However, it is very possible that the truth may be painful, may be distressing, may be destructive of happiness or makes it impossible. Religion, unlike philosophy, is under the category of the useful one. It promises happiness and says what it is necessary to do and what it is necessary to be to deserve or to obtain it. Consequently, illusion is more important than truth if it gets happiness.

Marcel Conche

Don't seek happiness. If you seek it, you won't find it, because seeking is the antithesis of happiness. Happiness is ever elusive, but freedom from unhappiness is attainable now, by facing what is rather than making up stories about it.

Eckhart Tolle

The only way to find happiness is to understand that happiness is not out there. It's in here. And happiness is not next week. It's now.

Marshall Goldsmith

One who, while seeking happiness, oppresses with violence other living beings who also desire happinesss, will not find happiness hereafter.

Gautama Buddha

There's been a false and negative distinction that's been made between joy and happiness. Unfortunately, the message we send to those both inside and outside the church is, "Seeking happiness is superficial and shallow. Go out and get it in the world, but you won't find happiness in God." But all people seek happiness, and because they do, we're basically telling them, "Stop seeking what God Himself wired you to seek." What we should be saying is, "Seek your happiness in the right place - in God Himself."

Randy Alcorn

The truth is that life is hard and dangerous; that he who seeks his own happiness does not find it; that he who is weak must suffer; that he who demands love will be disappointed; that he who is greedy will not be fed; that he who seeks peace will find strife; that truth is only for the brave; that joy is only for him who does not fear to be alone; that life is only for the one who is not afraid to die.

Joyce Cary

We often see people every day searching in the wrong places for the things they desire. Too many of our fellow humans try to find peace and happiness in drugs, alcohol, and sensual excitement. And it doesn't work. If we desire peace, the first place to look is within ourselves. Peace isn't an external condition as much as an internal context.

John Templeton

Experiment with this a little. During these days that you are here with me, don't nourish any desire for happiness, and then see how your heart becomes filled with happiness. Don't have any desire for peace, and see how the turmoil within you vanishes. Don't beg for contentment and see how contentment showers down on you. Please try this - only then will you understand.

Rajneesh

Now, when ordinary people attempt to find happiness, I am not sure whether the happiness is really happiness or not. I study what ordinary people do to find happiness, what they struggle for, rushing about apparently unable to stop.

Zhuangzi

Finding happiness is like finding yourself. You don't find happiness, you make happiness. You choose happiness. Self-actualization is a process of discovering who you are, who you want to be and paving the way to happiness by doing what brings you the most meaning and contentment to your life over the long run.

David Leonhardt

In this world we find that all happiness is followed by misery as its shadow. Life has its shadow, death. They must go together, because they are not contradictory, not two separate existences, but different manifestations of the same unit, life and death, sorrow and happiness, good and evil.