We are so presumptuous that we should like to be known all over the world, even by people who will only come when we are no more. Such is our vanity that the good opinion of half a dozen of the people around us gives us pleasure and satisfaction.
Blaise PascalAll of our miseries prove our greatness. They are the miseries of a dethroned monarch.
Blaise PascalMen are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness.
Blaise PascalApart from Jesus Christ, we do not know what is our life, nor our death, nor God, nor ourselves.
Blaise PascalAnyone who found the secret of rejoicing when things go well without being annoyed when they go badly would have found the point.
Blaise PascalOn the occasions when I have pondered over men's various activities, the dangers and worries they are exposed to at Court or at war, from which so many quarrels, passions, risky, often ill-conceived actions and so on are born, I have often said that man's unhappiness springs from one thing alone, his incapacity to stay quietly in one room.
Blaise Pascal