Blaise Pascal Quotes

To ridicule philosophy is really to philosophize.

Do you wish people to think well of you? Don't speak well of yourself.

Knowing God without knowing our own wretchedness makes for pride. Knowing our own wretchedness without knowing God makes for despair. Knowing Jesus Christ strikes the balance because he shows us both God and our own wretchedness.

Little things console us because little things afflict us.

Few men speak humbly of humility, chastely of chastity, skeptically of skepticism.

Man is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness from which he emerges and the infinity in which he is engulfed.

There are only three types of people; those who have found God and serve him; those who have not found God and seek him, and those who live not seeking, or finding him. The first are rational and happy; the second unhappy and rational, and the third foolish and unhappy.

The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men.

Clarity of mind means clarity of passion, too; this is why a great and clear mind loves ardently and sees distinctly what it loves.

We must learn our limits. We are all something, but none of us are everything.

Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. Love still stands when all else has fallen.

Either Christianity is true or it's false. If you bet that it's true, and you believe in God and submit to Him, then if it IS true, you've gained God, heaven, and everything else. If it's false, you've lost nothing, but you've had a good life marked by peace and the illusion that ultimately, everything makes sense. If you bet that Christianity is not true, and it's false, you've lost nothing. But if you bet that it's false, and it turns out to be true, you've lost everything and you get to spend eternity in hell.

In difficult times carry something beautiful in your heart.

Don't try to add more years to your life. Better add more life to your years.

Muhammad established a religion by putting his enemies to death; Jesus Christ by commanding his followers to lay down their lives.

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 quarrelled with him?

Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere.

Justice without force is powerless; force without justice is tyrannical.

There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who think they are sinners and the sinners who think they are righteous.

People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come in to the mind of others.

Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed. There is no need for the whole universe to take up arms to crush him: a vapour, a drop of water is enough to kill him. but even if the universe were to crush him, man would still be nobler than his slayer, because he knows that he is dying and the advantage the universe has over him. The universe knows none of this.

Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.

Our nature consists in motion; complete rest is death.

He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God's providence to lead him aright.

The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.

Since we cannot know all there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything.

Jesus is the God whom we can approach without pride and before whom we can humble ourselves without despair.

Man's greatness lies in his power of thought.

In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't.

We are not satisfied with real life; we want to live some imaginary life in the eyes of other people and to seem different from what we actually are.

When a soldier complains of his hard life (or a labourer, etc.) try giving him nothing to do.

All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit quiet in a room alone.

The power of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special efforts, but by his ordinary doing

Words differently arranged have a different meaning, and meanings differently arranged have different effects.

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.

Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed.

Happiness is neither without us nor within us. It is in God, both without us and within us.

We know the truth, not only be the reason, but also be the heart.

Happiness can be found neither in ourselves nor in external things, but in God and in ourselves as united to him.

A trifle consoles us, for a trifle distresses us.

When I consider the small span of my life absorbed in the eternity of all time, or the small part of space which I can touch or see engulfed by the infinite immensity of spaces that I know not and that know me not, I am frightened and astonished to see myself here instead of there … now instead of then.

The knowledge of God is very far from the love of Him.

If you gain, you gain all. If you lose, you lose nothing. Wager then, without hesitation, that He exists.

Eloquence is a painting of the thoughts.

Those who do not hate their own selfishness and regard themselves as more important than the rest of the world are blind because the truth lies elsewhere

Everyone, without exception, is searching for happiness.

It is superstitious to put one's hopes in formalities, but arrogant to refuse to submit to them.

Small minds are concerned with the extraordinary, great minds with the ordinary.

If we examine our thoughts, we shall find them always occupied with the past and the future.

Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just.

To go beyond the bounds of moderation is to outrage humanity.

It is the contest that delights us, and not the victory.

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

All the miseries of mankind come from one thing, not knowing how to remain alone.

Curiosity is only vanity. Most frequently we wish not to know, but to talk. We would not take a sea voyage for the sole pleasure of seeing without hope of ever telling.

Law, without force, is impotent.

Ugly deeds are most estimable when hidden.

Faith is different from proof; the latter is human, the former is a Gift from God.

The charm of fame is so great, that we like every object to which it is attached, even death.

Nothing gives rest but the sincere search for truth.

The only shame is to have none.

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.

All of our reasoning ends in surrender to feeling.

Vanity is so secure in the heart of man that everyone wants to be admired: even I who write this, and you who read this.

Earnestness is enthusiasm tempered by reason.

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

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

We conceal it from ourselves in vain - we must always love something. In those matters seemingly removed from love, the feeling is secretly to be found, and man cannot possibly live for a moment without it.

Noble deeds that are concealed are most esteemed.

Through space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an atom; through thought I comprehend the world.

If we let ourselves believe that man began with divine grace, that he forfeited this by sin, and that he can be redeemed only by divine grace through the crucified Christ, then we shall find peace of mind never granted to philosophers. He who cannot believe is cursed, for he reveals by his unbelief that God has not chosen to give him grace.

The supreme function of reason is to show man that some things are beyond reason.

Love has reasons which reason cannot understand.

It is not good to be too free. It is not good to have everything one wants.

Human beings must be known to be loved; but Divine beings must be loved to be known.

Force rules the world, and not opinion; but opinion is that which makes use of force

Reason's last step is to acknowledge that there are infinitely many things beyond it.