Quotes by Pascal, Blaise

"Nothing is so intolerable to man as being fully at rest, without a passion, without business, without entertainment, without care."

Pascal, Blaise on passion
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"There are only three types of people; those who have found God and serve him; those who have not found God and seek him, and those who live not seeking, or finding him. The first are rational and happy; the second unhappy and rational, and the third foolish and unhappy."

Pascal, Blaise on people
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"People are usually more convinced by reasons they discovered themselves than by those found out by others."

Pascal, Blaise on persuasion   

"To have no time for philosophy is to be a true philosopher."

Pascal, Blaise on philosophers and philosophy
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"The origins of disputes between philosophers is, that one class of them have undertaken to raise man by displaying his greatness, and the other to debase him by showing his miseries."

Pascal, Blaise on philosophers and philosophy   

"To find recreation in amusement is not happiness."

Pascal, Blaise on pleasure   

"We must learn our limits. We are all something but none of us are everything."

Pascal, Blaise on possibilities   

"The property of power is to protect."

Pascal, Blaise on power   

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"Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true."

Pascal, Blaise on religion
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"Nothing gives rest but the sincere search for truth."

Pascal, Blaise on rest
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"Our nature consist in motion; complete rest is death."

Pascal, Blaise on rest   

"Vanity of science. Knowledge of physical science will not console me for ignorance of morality in time of affliction, but knowledge of morality will always console me for ignorance of physical science."

Pascal, Blaise on science   

"One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life and there is nothing better."

Pascal, Blaise on self discovery   

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

Pascal, Blaise on sin
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"The eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills me with dread."

Pascal, Blaise on space   

"Do you wish people to think well of you? Don't speak well of yourself."

Pascal, Blaise on speakers and speaking   

"When we see a natural style, we are astonished and charmed; for we expected to see an author, and we find a person."

Pascal, Blaise on style   

"Beauty is a harmonious relation between something in our nature and the quality of the object which delights us."

Pascal, Blaise on beauty
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"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."

Pascal, Blaise on belief
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"If we let ourselves believe that man began with divine grace, that he forfeited this by sin, and that he can be redeemed only by divine grace through the crucified Christ, then we shall find peace of mind never granted to philosophers. He who cannot believe is cursed, for he reveals by his unbelief that God has not chosen to give him grace."

Pascal, Blaise on belief
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"The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what to put first."

Pascal, Blaise on books - reading   

"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."

Pascal, Blaise on bores and boredom   

"It is superstitious to put one's hopes in formalities, but arrogant to refuse to submit to them."

Pascal, Blaise on ceremony   

"Man's greatness lies in his power of thought."

Pascal, Blaise on thoughts and thinking   

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

Pascal, Blaise on thoughts and thinking   

"Man is obviously made for thinking. Therein lies all his dignity and his merit; and his whole duty is to think as he ought."

Pascal, Blaise on thoughts and thinking   

"Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature; but he is a thinking reed. There is no need for the whole universe to take up arms to crush him: a vapor, a drop of water is enough to kill him. But even if the universe were to crush him, man would still be nobler than his slayer, because he knows that he is dying and the advantage the universe has over him. The universe knows nothing of this."

Pascal, Blaise on thoughts and thinking   

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

Pascal, Blaise on truth   

"The multitude which is not brought to act as a unity, is confusion. That unity which has not its origin in the multitude is tyranny."

Pascal, Blaise on unity   

"Any unity which doesn't have its origin in the multitudes is tyranny."

Pascal, Blaise on unity   

"I have made this letter a rather long one, only because I didn't have the leisure to make it shorter."

Pascal, Blaise on wordiness   

"If I had more time I would write a shorter letter."

Pascal, Blaise on writers and writing
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"The last thing we decide in writing a book is what to put first."

Pascal, Blaise on writers and writing   

"Animals do not admire each other. A horse does not admire its companion."

Pascal, Blaise on admiration   

"The highest order of mind is accused of folly, as well as the lowest. Nothing is thoroughly approved but mediocrity. The majority has established this, and it fixes its fangs on whatever gets beyond it either way."

Pascal, Blaise on choice   

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

Pascal, Blaise on conflict
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"The war existing between the senses and reason."

Pascal, Blaise on conflict   

"Men never do evil so fully and cheerfully as when we do it out of conscience."

Pascal, Blaise on science   

"Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth."

Pascal, Blaise on contradiction
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"I do not admire a virtue like valour when it is pushed to excess, if I do not see at the same time the excess of the opposite virtue, as one does in Epaminondas, who displayed extreme valour and extreme benevolence. For otherwise it is not an ascent, but a fall. We do not display our greatness by placing ourselves at one extremity, but rather by being at both at the same time, and filling up the whole of the space between them. "

Pascal, Blaise on uncategorised