People often mistake their imagination for their heart, & so often are convinced they are converted as soon as they start thinking of becoming converted.
~ Blaise Pascal
If man studied himself, he would see how incapable he is of going further.
Curiosity is only vanity. We usually only want to know something so that we can talk about it.
People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others.
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.
Eloquence is painted thought, and thus those who, after having painted it, add somewhat more, make a picture, not a portrait.
All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit quiet in a room alone.
Men seek rest in a struggle against difficulties; and when they have conquered these, rest becomes insufferable.
The art of opposition and of revolution is to unsettle established customs, sounding them even to their source, to point out their want of authority and justice.
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.
Eloquence.— We need both what is pleasing and what is real, but that which pleases must itself be drawn from the true.
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.
I lay it down as a fact that if all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends in the world.
When I consider the small span of my life absorbed in the eternity of all time, or the small part of space which I can touch or see engulfed by the infinite immensity of spaces that I know not and that know me not, I am frightened and astonished to see myself here instead of there … now instead of then.
People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive.
I do not admire the excess of a virtue like courage unless I see at the same time an excess of the opposite virtue, as in Epaminondas, who possessed extreme courage and extreme kindness. We show greatness not by being at one extreme, but by touching both at once and occupying all the space in between.
Dull minds are never either intuitive or mathematical.
Il n'est pas certain que tout soit incertain.(Translation: It is not certain that everything is uncertain.)
The charm of fame is so great, that we like every object to which it is attached, even death.
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.
We must keep our thought secret, and judge everything by it, while talking like the people.
Just as all things speak about God to those that know Him, and reveal Him to those that love Him, they also hide Him from all those that neither seek nor know Him.
The weather and my mood have little connection. I have my foggy and my fine days within me, my prosperity or misfortune has little to do with the matter.
I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it sho
Contradiction is not a sign of falsity nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.
We sail within a vast sphere ever drifting in uncertainty driven from end to end.
Losses are comparative imagination only makes them of any moment.
Faith declares what the senses do not see but not the contrary of what they see.
Faith is a sounder guide than reason. Reason can go only so far but faith has no limits.
It is the heart which experiences God and not the reason.
It is impossible on reasonable grounds to disbelieve miracles.
Faith is a gift of God.
The majority is the best way because it is visible and has strength to make itself obeyed. Yet it is the opinion of the least able.
Man is only a reed the weakest thing in nature but he is a thinking reed.
The power of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special efforts but by his ordinary doing.
The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of.
Our own interests are still an exquisite means for dazzling our eyes agreeably.
Let it not be said that I have said nothing new. The arrangement of the material is new.
I have only made this letter rather long because I have not had time to make it shorter.
Do you wish people to think well of you? Don't speak well of yourself.
