Let each of us examine his thoughts; he will find them wholly concerned with the past or the future. We almost never think of the present, and if we do think of it, it is only to see what light is throws on our plans for the future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means, the future alone our end. Thus we never actually live, but hope to live, and since we are always planning how to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so.
Blaise PascalWhat a chimera then is man. What a novelty! What a monster... what a contradiction, what a prodigy
Blaise PascalWhen some passion or effect is described in a natural style, we find within ourselves the truth of what we hear, without knowing it was there.
Blaise PascalAll of our miseries prove our greatness. They are the miseries of a dethroned monarch.
Blaise PascalLet us imagine a number of men in chains and all condemned to death, where some are killed each day in the sight of the others, and those who remain see their own fate in that of their fellows and wait their turn, looking at each other sorrowfully and without hope. It is an image of the condition of man.
Blaise Pascal