Quotes from Blaise Pascal

115] Immateriality of the soul. When philosophers have subdued their passions, what material substance has managed to achieve this?

There is no better proof of human vanity than to consider the causes and effects of love, because the whole universe can be changed by it.

Instability.—It is a horrible thing to feel all that we possess slipping away.

77] Pride. Curiosity is only vanity. We usually only want to know something so that we can talk about it; in other words, we would never travel by sea if it meant never talking about it, and for the sheer pleasure of seeing things we could never hope to describe to others.

Fascinatio nugacitatis - Pentru ca patima s? nu ne vat?me, s? tr?im ca ÅŸi cum n-am avea decât opt zile de tr?it.

Imagination decides everything: it creates beauty, justice and happiness, which is the world's supreme good.

The ordinary life of men is like that of saints. They all seek satisfaction, and differ only according to the object in which they locate it.

Our own interest is another wonderful instrument for blinding us agreeably.

Ambiguity goes just so far and no further.

So I hold out my arms to my Redeemer, who, having been foretold for four thousand years, has come to suffer and to die for me on earth, at the time and under all the circumstances foretold. By His grace, I await death in peace, in the hope of being eternally united to Him. Yet I live with joy, whether in the prosperity which it pleases Him to bestow upon me, or in the adversity which He sends for my good, and which He has taught me to bear by His example. 737

Nous sommes de bien petites mécaniques égarées par les infinis.

Things have various qualities and the soul various tendencies, for nothing presented to the soul is simple, and the soul never applies itself simply to any subject. That is why the same thing makes us laugh and cry.

The right way is to want what God wants. Christ alone leads to it. Via Veritas.1

We are so unhappy that we can only enjoy something which we should be annoyed to see go wrong, and that can and does constantly happen to thousands of things. Anyone who found the secret of rejoicing when things go well without being annoyed when they go badly would have found the point. It is perpetual motion.

Chess is the gymnasium of the mind

Man without faith can know neither true good nor justice.

All men seek happiness. There are no exceptions. However different the means they may employ, they all strive towards this goal. The reason why some go to war and some do not is the same desire in both, but interpreted in two different ways. The will never takes the least step except to that end. This is the motive of every act of every man, including those who go and hang themselves.

96]. Cause and effect. Human weakness is the reason for so many canons of beauty; for instance, being a good lute-player. It is only our weakness which makes it a bad thing [not to be one?].

Anyone who wants to know the full extent of man's vanity has only to consider the causes and effects of love. The cause is a je ne sais quoi . (Corneille.) And its effects are terrifying. This indefinable something, so trifling that we cannot recognize it, upsets the whole earth, princes, armies, the entire world.

Man must not be allowed to believe that he is equal either to animals or to angels, nor to be unaware of either, but he must know both.

When I consider the brief span of my life absorbed into the eternity which comes before and after-- as the remembrance of a guest that tarrieth but a day --the small space I occupy and which I see swallowed up in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I know nothing and which know nothing of me, I take fright and am amazed to see myself here rather than there, now rather than then.

Voilà notre état véritable. C'est ce qui resserre nos connaissances en de certaines bornes que nous ne pas sons pas, incapables de savoir tout, et d'ignorer tout absolument.

One must know oneself. Even if that does not help in finding truth, at least it helps in running one's life, and nothing is more proper.

Contradictions. Infinite wisdom and infinite folly of religion.