What use is it to us to hear it said of a man that he has thrown off the yoke that he does not believe there is a God to watch over his actions, that he reckons himself the sole master of his behavior, and that he does not intend to give an account of it to anyone but himself?
Blaise PascalThe mind has its arrangement; it proceeds from principles to demonstrations. The heart has a different mode of proceeding.
Blaise PascalThe greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men.
Blaise PascalAll I know is that I must soon die, but what I know least is this very death which I cannot escape.
Blaise PascalIt is the heart which perceives God and not the reason. That is what faith is: God perceived by the heart, not by the reason.
Blaise PascalWe like security: we like the pope to be infallible in matters of faith, and grave doctors to be so in moral questions so that we can feel reassured.
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 PascalThe charm of fame is so great that we like every object to which it is attached, even death.
Blaise PascalNothing is so intolerable to man as being fully at rest, without a passion, without business, without entertainment, without care.
Blaise PascalWhen malice has reason on its side, it looks forth bravely, and displays that reason in all its luster. When austerity and self-denial have not realized true happiness, and the soul returns to the dictates of nature, the reaction is fearfully extravagant.
Blaise PascalImagination magnifies small objects with fantastic exaggeration until they fill our soul, and with bold insolence cuts down great things to its own size, as when speaking of God.
Blaise PascalJustice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just.
Blaise PascalWho can doubt that we exist only to love? Disguise it, in fact, as we will, we love without intermission... We live not a moment exempt from its influence.
Blaise PascalWhen I have occasionally set myself to consider the different distractions of men, the pains and perils to which they expose themselves I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber.
Blaise PascalWho dispenses reputation? Who makes us respect and revere persons, works, laws, the great? Who but this faculty of imagination? All the riches of the earth are inadequate without its approval.
Blaise PascalThe statements of atheists ought to be perfectly clear of doubt. Now it is not perfectly clear that the soul is material.
Blaise PascalJustice and truth are two such subtle points, that our tools are too blunt to touch them accurately.
Blaise PascalWe must keep our thought secret, and judge everything by it, while talking like the people.
Blaise PascalDeath itself is less painful when it comes upon us unawares than the bare contemplation of it, even when danger is far distant.
Blaise PascalEducation produces natural intuitions, and natural intuitions are erased by education.
Blaise PascalReverend Fathers, my letters did not usually follow each other at such close intervals, nor were they so long.... This one would not be so long had I but the leisure to make it shorter.
Blaise PascalContradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.
Blaise PascalVanity of science. Knowledge of physical science will not console me for ignorance of morality in time of affliction, but knowledge of morality will always console me for ignorance of physical science.
Blaise PascalDeath is easier to bear without thinking of it, than the thought of death without peril.
Blaise PascalIt is incomprehensible that God should exist, and it is incomprehensible that he should not exist.
Blaise PascalThe sole cause of all human misery is the inability of people to sit quietly in their rooms.
Blaise PascalThe last proceeding of reason is to recognize that there is an infinity of things which are beyond it. There is nothing so conformable to reason as this disavowal of reason.
Blaise PascalMan is full of desires: he loves only those who can satisfy them all. "This man is a good mathematician," someone will say. But I have no concern for mathematics; he would take me for a proposition. "That one is a good soldier." He would take me for a besieged town. I need, that is to say, a decent man who can accommodate himself to all my desires in a general sort of way.
Blaise PascalThe present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter.
Blaise PascalIf he exalts himself, I humble him. If he humbles himself, I exalt him. And I go on contradicting him Until he understands That he is a monster that passes all understanding.
Blaise PascalMan's true nature being lost, everything becomes his nature; as, his true good being lost, everything becomes his good.
Blaise PascalThe imagination enlarges little objects so as to fill our souls with a fantastic estimate; and, with rash insolence, it belittles the great to its own measure, as when talking of God.
Blaise PascalTrue eloquence makes light of eloquence, true morality makes light of morality; that is to say, the morality of the judgment, which has no rules, makes light of the morality of the intellect.... To make light of philosophy is to be a true philosopher.
Blaise PascalI do not admire a virtue like valour when it is pushed to excess, if I do not see at the same time the excess of the opposite virtue, as one does in Epaminondas, who displayed extreme valour and extreme benevolence. For otherwise it is not an ascent, but a fall. We do not display our greatness by placing ourselves at one extremity, but rather by being at both at the same time, and filling up the whole of the space between them.
Blaise Pascal