Quotes from Blaise Pascal

Imagination 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.

I do not admire the excess of a virtue like courage unless I see at the same time an excess of the opposite virtue, as in Epaminondas, who possessed extreme courage and extreme kindness. Otherwise it is not rising to the heights but falling down. We show greatness, not by being at one extreme, but by touching both at once and occupying all the space in between.

Le cÅ"ur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point.

Evil is never done so thoroughly or so well as when it is done with a good conscience.

I feel that it is possible that I might never have existed, for my self consists in thought; therefore I who think would never have been if my mother had been killed before I had come to life; therefore I am not a necessary being. I am not eternal or infinite either…

It is absurd of us to rely on the company of our fellows, as wretched and helpless as we are; they will not help us; we shall die alone. We must act then as if we were alone. If that were so, would we build superb houses, etc.? We should unhesitatingly look for the truth. And, if we refuse, it shows that we have a higher regard for men's esteem than for pursuing the truth.

I have often said that the sole cause of man's unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.

The eternal silence of these infinite places fills me with dread.

There is nothing we can now call our own, for what we call so is the effect of art; crimes are made by decrees of the senate, or by the votes of the people; and as here-to-fore we are burdened by vices, so now we are oppressed by laws.

It is superstitious to put one's hope in formalities, but arrogant to refuse to submit to them.

Thus I stretch out my arms to my Saviour, who, after being foretold for four thousand years, came on earth to die and suffer for me at the time and in the circumstances foretold. By his grace I peaceably await death, in the hope of being eternally united to him, and meanwhile I live joyfully, whether in the blessings which he is pleased to bestow on me or in the affliction he sends me for my own good and taught me how to endure by his example.

Eloquence is painted thought, and thus those who, after having painted it, add somewhat more, make a picture, not a portrait.

L'homme n'est qu'un roseau, le plus faible de la nature; mais c'est un roseau pensant. Il ne faut pas que l'univers entier s'arme pour l'éraser: un vapeur, un goutte d'eau suffit pout le tuer. Mais, quand l'univers l'écraserait, l'homme serait encore plus noble que ce qui le tue, pare qu'il sait qu'il meurt, et l'avantage que l'univers a sur lui, l'univers n'en sait rien.

Rivers are roads which move, and which carry us whither we desire to go.

Nothing strengthens the case for scepticism more than the fact that there are people who are not sceptics. If they all were, they would be wrong.

Everything that is incomprehensible does not cease to exist.

There is nothing so consistent with reason as this denial of reason.

We know that there is an infinite, and we know not its nature. As we know it to be false that numbers are finite, it is therefore true that there is a numerical infinity. But we know not of what kind; it is untrue that it is even, untrue that it is odd; for the addition of a unit does not change its nature; yet it is a number, and every number is odd or even (this certainly holds of every finite number). Thus we may quite well know that there is a God without knowing what He is.

Power rules the world, not opinion, but it is opinion that exploits power. It is power that makes opinion. To be easygoing can be a fine thing according to our opinion. Why? Because anyone who wants to dance the tightrope will be alone, and I can get together a stronger body of people to say there is nothing fine about it.

I condemn equally those who choose to praise man, those who choose to condemn him and those who choose to divert themselves, and I can only approve of those who seek with groans.

Jesus Christ and St Paul possess the order of charity, not of the mind, for they wished to humble, not to teach.

We know the existence of the infinite without knowing its nature, because it too has extension but unlike us no limits. But we do not know either the existence or the nature of God, because he has neither extension nor limits.

Man's greatness comes from knowing he is wretched.

All our reasoning comes down to surrendering to feeling.