The gist is that good and evil are foreordained. What is foreordained comes necessarily to be after a prior act of divine volition...Rather, everything small and large is written and comes to be in a known and expected measure.
Blaise PascalAll our life passes in this way: we seek rest by struggling against certain obstacles, and once they are overcome, rest proves intolerable because of the boredom it produces.
Blaise PascalThings have different qualities, and the soul different inclinations; for nothing is simple which is presented to the soul, and the soul never presents itself simply to any object. Hence it comes that we weep and laugh at the same thing.
Blaise PascalWhen a man who accepts the Christian doctrine lives unworthily of it, it is much clearer to say he is a bad Christian than to say he is not a Christian.
Blaise PascalGod only pours out his light into the mind after having subdued the rebellion of the will by an altogether heavenly gentleness which charms and wins it.
Blaise PascalThere is no arena in which vanity displays itself under such a variety of forms as in conversation.
Blaise PascalThe manner in which Epictetus, Montaigne, and Salomon de Tultie wrote, is the most usual, the most suggestive, the most remembered, and the oftener quoted; because it is entirely composed of thoughts born from the common talk of life.
Blaise PascalIf we regulate our conduct according to our own convictions, we may safely disregard the praise or censure of others.
Blaise PascalMan's sensitivity to the little things and insensitivity to the greatest are the signs of a strange disorder.
Blaise PascalIt is of dangerous consequence to represent to man how near he is to the level of beasts, without showing him at the same time his greatness. It is likewise dangerous to let him see his greatness without his meanness. It is more dangerous yet to leave him ignorant of either; but very beneficial that he should be made sensible of both.
Blaise PascalWhen we would show any one that he is mistaken, our best course is to observe on what side he considers the subject,--for his view of if is generally right on this side,--and admit to him that he is right so far. He will be satisfied with this acknowledgment, that he was not wrong in his judgment, but only inadvertent in not looking at the whole case.
Blaise PascalAll err the more dangerously because each follows a truth. Their mistake lies not in following a falsehood but in not following another truth.
Blaise PascalNot only do we know God by Jesus Christ alone, but we know ourselves only by Jesus Christ. We know life and death only through Jesus Christ. Apart from Jesus Christ, we do not know what is our life, nor our death, nor God, nor ourselves.
Blaise PascalThe art of revolutionizing and overturning states is to undermine established customs, by going back to their origin, in order to mark their want of justice.
Blaise PascalThe philosophers talk to you about the dignity of man, and they tempt you to pride, or they talk to you about the misery of man, and they tempt you to despair.
Blaise PascalTo make a man a saint, it must indeed be by grace; and whoever doubts this does not know what a saint is, or a man.
Blaise PascalLa vraie e loquence se moque de l'e loquence, la vraie morale se moque de la morale. True eloquence has notime foreloquence, true morality has no time for morality.
Blaise PascalThe last function of reason is to recognize that there are an infinity of things which surpass it.
Blaise PascalI have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.
Blaise PascalDo little things as if they were great, because of the majesty of the Lord Jesus Christ who dwells in thee.
Blaise PascalThe least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble.
Blaise PascalThose who do not hate their own selfishness and regard themselves as more important than the rest of the world are blind because the truth lies elsewhere
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 PascalThe Stoics say, "Retire within yourselves; it is there you will find your rest." And that is not true. Others say, "Go out of yourselves; seek happiness in amusement." And this is not true. Illness comes. Happiness is neither without us nor within us. It is in God, both without us and within us.
Blaise PascalThe sensitivity of men to small matters, and their indifference to great ones, indicates a strange inversion.
Blaise PascalPeople almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive.
Blaise PascalReligion is so great a thing that it is right that those who will not take the trouble to seek it if it be obscure, should be deprived of it.
Blaise PascalHuman beings do not know their place and purpose. They have fallen from their true place, and lost their true purpose. They search everywhere for their place and purpose, with great anxiety. But they cannot find them because they are surrounded by darkness.
Blaise PascalThe parts of the universe ... all are connected with each other in such a way that I think it to be impossible to understand any one without the whole.
Blaise PascalVanity is so secure in the heart of man that everyone wants to be admired: even I who write this, and you who read this.
Blaise PascalAll the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber.
Blaise PascalIf man were happy, he would be the more so, the less he was diverted, like the saints and God.
Blaise PascalMen are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness.
Blaise Pascal