Quotes from Blaise Pascal

23] Vanity 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.

Les hommes ont mépris pour la religion. Ils en ont haine et peur qu'elle soit vraie. Pour guérir cela il faut commencer par montrer que la religion n'est point contraire à la raison. Vénérable, en donner respect. La rendre ensuite aimable, faire souhaiter aux bons qu'elle fut vraie et puis montrer qu'elle est vraie. Vénérable parce qu'elle a bien connu l'homme. Aimable parce qu'elle promet le vrai bien.

not in order to become wiser, but only in order to prove that they know them; and these are the most senseless of the band

There is enough light for those who desire only to see, and enough darkness for those of a contrary disposition.

36] Anyone who does not see the vanity of the world is very vain himself. So who does not see it, apart from young people whose lives are all noise, diversions, and thoughts for the future? But take away their diversion and you will see them bored to extinction. Then they feel their nullity without recognizing it, for nothing could be more wretched than to be intolerably depressed as soon as one is reduced to introspection with no means of diversion.

38] Too much and too little wine. Do not give him any, he cannot find the truth. Give him too much; the same thing.

If we ought to give up a week we ought to give up our whole life.

Put the world's greatest philosopher on a plank that is wider than need be: if there is a precipice below, although his reason may convince him that he is safe, his imagination will prevail.

Nos magistrats ont bien connu ce mystère. Leurs robes rouges, leurs hermines dont ils s'emmaillotent en chaffourés, les palais où ils jugent, les fleurs de lys, tout cet appareil auguste était fort nécessaire, et si les médecins n'avaient des soutanes et des mules, et que les docteurs n'eussent des bonnets carrés et des robes trop amples de quatre parties, jamais ils n'auraient dupé le monde qui ne peut résister à cette montre si authentique.

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We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end.

Reason's last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it.

Being unable to overcome death, misery, and uncertainty, men have agreed, in order to be happy, not to think about them.

God's will has been to redeem men and open the way of salvation to those who seek it, but men have shown themselves so unworthy that it is right for God to refuse to some, for their hardness of heart, what he grants to others by a mercy they have not earned... 'There is enough light for those who desire only to see, and enough darkness for those of a contrary disposition.

Our soul is cast into a body, where it finds number, time, dimension. Thereupon it reasons, and calls this nature, necessity, and can believe nothing else. If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible, since, having neither parts nor limits, He has no affinity to us. We are then incapable of knowing either what He is or if He is. This being so, who will dare to undertake the decision of the question? Not we, who have no affinity to Him.

Can anything be more ridiculous than that a man should have the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of the sea, and because his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have none with him.

There is internal war in man between reason and the passions. If he had only reason without passions ... If he had only passions without reason ... But having both, he cannot be without strife, being unable to be at peace with the one without being at war with the other. Thus he is always divided against, and opposed to himself.

Let each one examine his thoughts, and he will find them all occupied with the past and the future. We scarcely ever think of the present; and if we think of it, it is only to take light from it to arrange the future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means; the future alone is our end. [78] So we never live, but we hope to live; and, as we are always preparing to be happy, it is inevitable we should never be so.

138] Diversion. It is easier to bear death when one is not thinking about it than the idea of death when there is no danger. (166)

When we are accustomed to use bad reasons for proving natural effects, we are not willing to receive good reasons when they are discovered.

This internal war of reason against the passions has made a division of those who would have peace into two sects. The first would renounce their passions, and become gods; the others would renounce reason, and become brute beasts. (Des Barreaux.) [157] But neither can do so, and reason still remains, to condemn the vileness and injustice of the passions, and to trouble the repose of those who abandon themselves to them; and the passions keep always alive in those who would renounce them.

Truly it is an evil to be full of faults; but it is a still greater evil to be full of them, and to be unwilling to recognise them, since that is to add the further fault of a voluntary illusion. We do not like others to deceive us; we do not think it fair that they should be held in higher esteem by us than they deserve; it is not then fair that we should deceive them, and should wish them to esteem us more highly than we deserve.

Que chacun examine ses pensées ; il les trouvera toujours occupées au passé et à l'avenir. Nous ne pensons presque point au temps présent ; et si nous y pensons, ce n'est que pour en prendre la lumière pour disposer de l'avenir. Le présent n'est jamais notre fin ; le passé et le présent sont nos moyens ; le seul avenir est notre fin. Ainsi nous ne vivons jamais ; mais nous espérons vivre ( pensées )

Thus passes away all man's life. Men seek rest in a struggle against difficulties; and when they have conquered these, rest becomes insufferable. For we think either of the misfortunes we have or of those which threaten us.