All men naturally hate one another. I hold it a fact, that if men knew exactly what one says of the other, there would not be four friends in the world.
Blaise PascalHabit is a second nature that destroys the first. But what is nature? Why is habit not natural? I am very much afraid that nature itself is only a first habit, just as habit is a second nature.
Blaise PascalThere 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.
Blaise PascalIf man made himself the first object of study, he would see how incapable he is of going further. How can a part know the whole?
Blaise PascalWhen a natural discourse paints a passion or an effect, one feels within oneself the truth of what one reads, which was there before, although one did not know it. Hence one is inclined to love him who makes us feel it, for he has not shown us his own riches, but ours. ...such community of intellect that we have with him necessarily inclines the heart to love.
Blaise Pascal