Blaise Pascal Quotes

The heart has its reasons which reason knows not.

~ Blaise Pascal

I made this [letter] very long, because I did not have the leisure to make it shorter.

~ Blaise Pascal

To make light of philosophy is to be a true philosopher.

~ Blaise Pascal

When I see the blind and wretched state of men, when I survey the whole universe in its deadness, and man left to himself with no light, as though lost in this corner of the universe without knowing who put him there, what he has to do, or what will become of him when he dies, incapable of knowing anything, I am moved to terror, like a man transported in his sleep to some terrifying desert island, who wakes up quite lost, with no means of escape. Then I marvel that so wretched a state does not drive people to despair.

~ Blaise Pascal

The world is a good judge of things, for it is in natural ignorance, which is man's true state. The sciences have two extremes which meet. The first is the pure natural ignorance in which all men find themselves at birth. The other extreme is that reached by great intellects, who, having run through all that men can know, find they know nothing, and come back again to that same ignorance from which they set out; but this is a learned ignorance which is conscious of itself. Those between the two, who have departed from natural ignorance and not been able to reach the other, have some smattering of this vain knowledge and pretend to be wise. These trouble the world and are bad judges of everything. The people and the wise constitute the world; these despise it, and are despised. They judge badly of everything, and the world judges rightly of them.

~ Blaise Pascal

Δύο υπερβολές : ν' αποκλείουμε το Λόγο, και να μη δεχόμαστε παρά μόνο το Λόγο.

~ Blaise Pascal

Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.

~ Blaise Pascal

It is man's natural sickness to believe that he possesses the truth.

~ Blaise Pascal

He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God's providence to lead him aright

~ Blaise Pascal

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

~ Blaise Pascal

Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and the scholars. I will not forget thy word. Amen.

~ Blaise Pascal

The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what to put first.

~ Blaise Pascal

If we submit everything to reason our religion will be left with nothing mysterious or supernatural. If we offend the principles of reason our religion will be absurd and ridiculous . . . There are two equally dangerous extremes: to exclude reason, to admit nothing but reason.

~ Blaise Pascal

To make a man a saint, it must indeed be by grace; and whoever doubts this does not know what a saint is, or a man.

~ Blaise Pascal

There are three sources of belief: reason, custom, inspiration.

~ Blaise Pascal

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

~ Blaise Pascal

He no longer loves the person whom he loved ten years ago. I quite believe it. She is no longer the same, nor is he. He was young, and she also; she is quite different. He would perhaps love her yet, if she were what she was then.

~ Blaise Pascal

Men spend their time in following a ball or a hare it is the pleasure even of kings.

~ Blaise Pascal

All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.

~ Blaise Pascal

There is nothing we can now call our own, for what we call so is the effect of art; crimes are made by decrees of the senate, or by the votes of the people; and as here-to-fore we are burdened by vices, so now we are oppressed by laws.

~ Blaise Pascal

There is a certain standard of grace and beauty which consists in a certain relation between our nature... and the thing which pleases us.

~ Blaise Pascal

When we read too fast or too slowly, we understand nothing.

~ Blaise Pascal

I would prefer an intelligent hell to a stupid paradise.

~ Blaise Pascal

Lust is the source of all our actions, and humanity.

~ Blaise Pascal

Nature has made all her truths independent of one another. Our art makes one dependent on the other.

~ Blaise Pascal

Those honor nature well, who teach that she can speak on everything.

~ 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

The heart has its order, the mind has its own, which uses principles and demonstrations. The heart has a different one. We do not prove that we ought to be loved by setting out in order the causes of love; that would be absurd.

~ Blaise Pascal

Knowlege of God without knowledge of man's wretchedness leads to pride. Knowledge of man's wretchedness without knowledge of God leads to despair. Knowledge of Jesus Christ is the middle course, because by it we discover both God and our wretched state.

~ Blaise Pascal

Our intellect holds the same position in the world of thought as our body occupies in the expanse of nature.

~ Blaise Pascal

The infinite distance between the mind & the body is a symbol of the distance that is infinitely more, between the intellect & love, for love is divine.

~ Blaise Pascal

We do not content ourselves with the life we have in ourselves and in our own being; we desire to live an imaginary life in the mind of others, and for this purpose we endeavour to shine. We labour unceasingly to adorn and preserve this imaginary existence, and neglect the real. And if we possess calmness, or generosity, or truthfulness, we are eager to make it known, so as to attach these virtues to that imaginary existence. We would rather separate them from ourselves to join them to it; and we would willingly be cowards in order to acquire the reputation of being brave. A great proof of the nothingness of our being, not to be satisfied with the one without the other, and to renounce the one for the other! For he would be infamous who would not die to preserve his honour.

~ Blaise Pascal

The last thing we discover in composing a work is what to put down first.

~ Blaise Pascal

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

~ Blaise Pascal

Men are so inevitably mad that not to be mad would be to give a mad twist to madness.

~ Blaise Pascal

Kind words produce their images on men's souls.

~ Blaise Pascal

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

~ Blaise Pascal

If we do not know ourselves to be full of pride, ambition, lust, weakness, misery, and injustice, we are indeed blind. And if, knowing this, we do not desire deliverance, what can we say of a man...?

~ Blaise Pascal

The knowledge of God without that of man's misery causes pride. The knowledge of man's misery without that of God causes despair. The knowledge of Jesus Christ is the middle course, because in Him we find both God and our misery.

~ Blaise Pascal

Man is but a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed.

~ Blaise Pascal