Quotes from Blaise Pascal

Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.

God alone is man's true good, and since man abandoned him it is a strange fact that nothing in nature has been found to take his place...Since losing his true good, man is capable of seeing it in anything, even his own destruction, although it is so contrary at once to God, to reason, and to nature.

Let us then strive to think well; that is basic principle of morality. (54)

Be comforted; it is not from yourself that you must expect it, but on the contrary you must expect it by expecting nothing from yourself. (Page 55)

There is nothing so conformable to reason as to disavow reason

Canonical books. The heretics at the beginning of the Church serve to prove the canonical books.

Dieu, par sa miséricorde, donne, quand il lui plaît, aux justes le pouvoir plein et parfait d'accomplir les préceptes, et qu'il ne le donne pas toujours, par un jugement juste, quoique caché.

Man's greatness come from knowing he wretched: a tree does not know it is wretched. (21)

What is important is not the quantity of your knowledge, but its quality. You can know many things without knowing that which is most important. There are two types of ignorance, the pure, natural ignorance into which all people are born, and the ignorance of the so-called wise. You will see that many among those who call themselves scholars do not know real life, and they despise simple people and simple things.

The strength of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts.

But for this mystery [of original sin], the most incomprehensible of all, we remain incomprehensible to ourselves.

Let us imagine a number of men in chains, and all condemned to death, where some are slaughtered each day in the sight of the others, and those who remain see their own fate in that of their fellows, and wait their turn, looking at each other sorrowfully and without hope. It is an image of the condition of men.

Earthly things must be known to be loved; heavenly things must be loved to be known.

I believe those witnesses who get their throats cut.

Wretchedness induces despair. Pride produces presumption. The incarnation shows man the greatness of his wretchedness through the greatness of the remedy required.

All human troubles derive from our inability to sit still and alone in a room.

Ugly deeds are most estimable when hidden.

La giustizia è soggetta a discussione, la forza è molto riconosciuta e indiscussa. Così non si è potuto dare la forza alla giustizia perché la forza ha contraddetto la giustizia e ha affermato che solo lei era giusta. E così, non potendo ottenere che ciò che è giusto sia forte, si è fatto sì che ciò che è forte sia giusto

Je ne crois que les histoires dont les témoins se feraient égorger.

Our intellect holds the same position in the world of thought as our body occupies in the expanse of nature.

It is better to know something about everything than to know everything about something.

Gustavo Solivellas dice: El corazón tiene razones que la razón ignora (Blaise Pascal)

La chose la plus importante à toute vie est le choix d'un métier : le hasard en dispose.

Todas las miserias de la humanidad se deben a una sola cosa: a que somos incapaces de estar sentados solos y en silencio en una habitación