Quotes from Blaise Pascal

Making fun of philosophy is really philosophising.

Nature has made all her truths independent of one another. Our art makes one dependent on the other. But this is not natural. Each keeps its own place.

When we see a natural style, we are astonished and charmed; for we expected to see an author, and we find a person.

[On vanity:] The nose of Cleopatra: if it had been shorter, the face of the earth would have changed.

It is the fight alone that pleases us, not the victory.

Love has no age as it is always renewing itself.

No soul of high estate can take pleasure in slander. It betrays a weakness.

Few friendships would survive if each one knew what his friend says of him behind his back.

One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life, and there is nothing better.

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

All I know is that I must soon die, but what I know least is this very death which I cannot escape.

Our nature consists in motion; complete rest is death.

Death is easier to bear without thinking of it, than the thought of death without peril.

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

I maintain that, if everyone knew what others said about him, there would not be four friends in the world.

If all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends in the world.

Notre nature est dans le mouvement; le repos entier est la mort. Our nature consists in movement; absolute rest is death.

There is enough light for those who only desire to see, and enough obscurity for those who have a contrary disposition

Rivers are roads which move, and which carry us whither we desire to go.

Desire and force between them are responsible for all our actions; desire causes our voluntary acts, force our involuntary.

Chance gives rise to thoughts, and chance removes them; no art can keep or acquire them.

It is the heart which perceives God and not the reason. That is what faith is: God perceived by the heart, not by the reason.

Faith is a gift of God.

It is impossible on reasonable grounds to disbelieve miracles.