Quotes from Blaise Pascal

The apostles were either deceived or deceivers. Either supposition is difficult.

God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and scholars...Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy...'This is life eternal that they might know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.' Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ...May I not fall from him forever...I will not forget your word. Amen.

No one dies so poor that he does not leave something behind.

La verdad está tan obnubilada en este tiempo y la mentira tan sentada que, a menos de amar la verdad, ya no es posible conocerla.

And thus, by combining the uncertainty of chance with the force of mathematical proof and by the reconciliation of two apparent opposites, she derives her name from both of them and rightfully assumes the wonderful name of Mathematics of Chance!

Les misères de tous les hommes tirent de ne pas être en mesure de s'asseoir dans une pièce calme seul.

Nature does nothing to avoid the vacuum; rather the weight of the air masses is the true reason for all these phenomena which we have been ascribing to an imaginary cause.

Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos dans une chambre.

Who bears witness to Muhammad? Himself. Jesus Christ wants his witness to be nothing. The quality of witnesses means they must always and everywhere be wretched. He is alone.

God has never abandoned His true worshipers.

Consequences must outweigh probabilities

It is good to be tired and wearied by the vain search after the true good, that we may stretch out our arms to the Redeemer.

If our condition were truly happy, we would not seek diversion from it in order to make ourselves happy.

For after all what is man in nature? A nothing in relation to infinity, all in relation to nothing, a central point between nothing and all and infinitely far from understanding either. The ends of things and their beginnings are impregnably concealed from him in an impenetrable secret. He is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness out of which he was drawn and the infinite in which he is engulfed. Blaise Pascal, Pensées No. 72

The future alone is our end. So we never live, but we hope to live; and as we are always preparing to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so.

It 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.

Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarreled with him?

Love has reasons which reason cannot understand.

What astonishes us most is to observe that everyone is not astonished at his own weakness.

One says, It is two hours ago; the other says, It is only three-quarters of an hour. I look at my watch, and say to the one, You are weary, and to the other, Time gallops with you; for it is only an hour and a half ago, and I laugh at those who tell me that time goes slowly with me, and that I judge by imagination. They do not know that I judge by my watch.

Che non si dica che non ho detto niente di nuovo: la disposizione delle materie è nuova.

To make light of philosophy is to be a true philosopher

Man is but a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed.

All of our reasoning ends in surrender to feeling.