Quotes from Blaise Pascal

152] Between us and heaven or hell there is only life half-way, the most fragile thing in the world.

If our condition were truly happy we should not need to divert ourselves from thinking about it. (12)

For in fact what is man in nature? A Nothing in comparison with the Infinite, an All in comparison with the Nothing, a mean between nothing and everything.

If we look at our work immediately after completing it, we are still too involved; if too long afterwards, we cannot pick up the thread again. It

Certain authors, speaking of their works, say: My book, My commentary, My history, etc. They resemble middle-class people who have a house of their own and always have My house on their tongue.

Through space the universe grasps me and swallows me up like a speck; through thought I grasp it. (Page 21)

É impossível compreender que Deus exista, e é também impossível compreender que não exista; que a alma esteja unida ao corpo, e que não exista alma; que o mundo tenha sido criado, e que não tenha sido criado...

And if it were true, we do not think all philosophy is worth one hour of pain.

Let us then realize our limitations. We are something and we are not everything. Such being as we have conceals from us the knowledge of first principles, which arise from nothingness, and the smallness of our being hides infinity from our sight.

I have often said the soul cause of man's unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in a room. (Page 32)

80] Respect means; put yourself out. That may look pointless, but it is quite right, because it amounts to saying: I should certainly put myself out if you needed it, because I do so when you do not; besides, respect serves to distinguish the great. If respect meant sitting in an armchair we should be showing everyone respect and then there would be no way of marking distinction, but we make the distinction quite clear by putting ourselves out.

Faith certainly tells us what the senses do not, but not the contrary of what they see; it is above, not against them.

The weather and my mood have little connection. I have my foggy and my fine days within me.

The motions of Grace, the hardness of heart; external circumstances.

Finally, let them recognise that there are two kinds of people one can call reasonable; those who serve God with all their heart because they know Him, and those who seek Him with all their heart because they do not know Him.

Nie betrieben die Menschen das Böse so umfassend und freudig wie aus religiöser Überzeugung.

When I consider the small span of my life absorbed in the eternity of all time, or the small part of space which I can touch or see engulfed by the infinite immensity of spaces that I know not and that know me not, I am frightened and astonished to see myself here instead of there...now instead of then.

The tone of voice influences the wisest of us and alters the force of a speech or a poem.

What is it then that this desire and this inability proclaim to us, but that there was once in man a true happiness of which there now remain to him only the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present? But these are all inadequate, because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to say, only by God Himself.

El amor no tiene edad; siempre está naciendo.

Reason never wholly overcomes imagination, while the contrary is quite common.

We never do evil so fully and cheerfully as when we do it out of conscience.

El hombre tiene ilusiones como el pájaro alas. Eso es lo que lo sostiene

Two contrary reasons . We must begin with that, otherwise we cannot understand anything and everything is heretical. And even at the end of each truth we must add that we are bearing the opposite truth in mind.