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Blaise Pascal Quotes - Page 17

All Quotes Achievement Age Anxiety Appreciation Art Atheism Atheist Authority Beauty Belief Blindness Boredom Certainty Change Character Charity Christ Confusion Curiosity Darkness Death Deception Desire Dignity Doubt Duty Dying Earth Effort Eternity Evil Faith Feelings Giving Glory God Good Deeds Grace Greatness Happiness Hate Heart Heaven History Humanity Humility Hypocrisy Ignorance Imagination Inspirational Intelligence Intuition Jesus Joy Judging Justice Killing Kindness Knowing God Knowledge Life Logic Loss Love Lying Madness Mankind Math Mathematics Mediocrity Moderation Morality Nature Originality Pain Painting Passion Past Peace Perception Philosophy Pleasure Power Pride Progress Purpose Quality Reading Reality Religion Reputation Running Sadness Science Shame Silence Sin Sleep Solitude Soul Spring Struggle Study Style Suffering Time Truth Tyranny Understanding Unity Universe Vision War Water Weakness Winning Wisdom Writing

We make an idol of truth itself; for truth apart from charity is not God, but His image and idol, which we must neither love nor worship.

We make an idol of truth itself; for truth apart from charity is not God, but His image and idol, which we must neither love nor worship.

Love, Idols, Age

"Pascal's Pensées: Selections".

We know then the existence and nature of the finite, because we also are finite and have extension. We know the existence of the infinite and are ignorant of its nature, because it has extension like us, but not limits like us. But we know neither the existence nor the nature of God, because he has neither extension nor limits.

God, Ignorant, Limits

Blaise Pascal (2013). “Pensées”, p.66, Courier Corporation

We are so presumptuous that we wish to be known to all the world, even to those who come after us; and we are so vain that the esteem of five or six persons immediately around us is enough to amuse and satisfy us.

Vanity, Wish, World

Blaise Pascal (1849). “Thoughts of Blaise Pascal”, p.90

I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.

Time, Learning, Usual

Lettres Provinciales no. 16 (1657) See Thoreau 34; WoodrowWilson 25

Man is so great that his greatness appears even in the consciousness of his misery. A tree does not know itself to be miserable. It is true that it is misery indeed to know one's self to be miserable; but then it is greatness also. In this way, all man's miseries go to prove his greatness. They are the miseries of a mighty potentate, of a dethroned monarch.

Greatness, Men, Self

Blaise Pascal (1829). “Thoughts on Religion and Other Subjects”, p.66

There is a certain standard of grace and beauty which consists in a certain relation between our nature, such as it is, weak or strong, and the thing which pleases us. Whatever is formed according to this standard pleases us, be it house, song, discourse, verse, prose, woman, birds, rivers, trees, room, dress, and so on. Whatever is not made according to this standard displeases those who have good taste.

Beauty, Song, Strong

Blaise Pascal (2010). “Thoughts, Letters & Minor Works”, p.16, Cosimo, Inc.

As we speak of poetical beauty, so ought we to speak of mathematical beauty and medical beauty. But we do not do so; and that reason is that we know well what is the object of mathematics, and that it consists in proofs, and what is the object of medicine, and that it consists in healing. But we do not know in what grace consists, which is the object of poetry.

Beauty, Healing, Medicine

Blaise Pascal (2010). “Thoughts, Letters & Minor Works”, p.17, Cosimo, Inc.

The two principles of truth, reason and senses, are not only both not genuine, but are engaged in mutual deception. The senses deceive reason through false appearances, and the senses are disturbed by passions, which produce false impressions.

Passion, Two, Deception

Blaise Pascal (1966). “Pascal Pensées”, Penguin Classics

To speak freely of mathematics, I find it the highest exercise of the spirit; but at the same time I know that it is so useless that I make little distinction between a man who is only a mathematician and a common artisan. Also, I call it the most beautiful profession in the world; but it is only a profession.

Beautiful, Exercise, Men

The only thing which consoles for our miseries is diversion, and yet this is the greatest of our miseries. For it is this which principally hinders us from reflecting upon ourselves and which makes us imperceptibly ruin ourselves.

Sadness, Reflecting Upon, Ruins

A little thing comforts us because a little thing afflicts us.

Comfort, Littles, Little Things

Blaise Pascal, Thomas Adam, Edward Bickersteth (1833). “Thoughts on religion”, p.121

Imagination magnifies small objects with fantastic exaggeration until they fill our soul, and with bold insolence cuts down great things to its own size, as when speaking of God.

Cutting, Small Objects, Imagination

Blaise Pascal (2008). “Human Happiness”, Penguin Group USA

To find recreation in amusements is not happiness; for this joy springs from alien and extrinsic sources, and is therefore dependent upon and subject to interruption by a thousand accidents, which may minister inevitable affliction.

Spring, Joy, May

Blaise Pascal (1829). “Thoughts on Religion and Other Subjects”, p.266

If he exalts himself, I humble him. If he humbles himself, I exalt him. And I go on contradicting him Until he understands That he is a monster that passes all understanding.

Humble, Understanding, Monsters

Blaise Pascal (1966). “Pascal Pensées”, Penguin Classics

All men are almost led to believe not of proof, but by attraction. This way is base, ignoble, and irrelevant; every one therefore disavows it. Each one professes to believe and even to love nothing but what he knows to be worthy of belief and love.

Believe, Men, And Love

Blaise Pascal (2010). “Thoughts, Letters & Minor Works”, p.406, Cosimo, Inc.

The parts of the universe ... all are connected with each other in such a way that I think it to be impossible to understand any one without the whole.

Science, Thinking, Way

Reverend Fathers, my letters did not usually follow each other at such close intervals, nor were they so long.... This one would not be so long had I but the leisure to make it shorter.

Father, Math, Long

Since we cannot be universal and know all that is to be known of everything, we ought to know a little about everything. For it is far better to know something about everything than to know all about one thing. This universality is the best. If we can have both, still better; but if we must choose, we ought to choose the former.

Knowledge, Knows, One Thing

"Thoughts, Letters & Minor Works".

The heart has its order, the mind has its own, which uses principles and demonstrations. The heart has a different one. We do not prove that we ought to be loved by setting out in order the causes of love; that would be absurd.

Heart, Order, Mind

Blaise Pascal (1966). “Pascal Pensées”, Penguin Classics

The consciousness of the falsity of present pleasures, and the ignorance of the vanity of absent pleasures, cause inconstancy.

Ignorance, Vanity, Causes

Blaise Pascal (2010). “Thoughts, Letters & Minor Works”, p.47, Cosimo, Inc.

As men are not able to fight against death, misery, ignorance, they have taken it into their heads, in order to be happy, not to think of them at all.

Taken, Ignorance, Sadness

Blaise Pascal (2007). “Thoughts”, p.63, Cosimo, Inc.

All men naturally hate one another. I hold it a fact, that if men knew exactly what one says of the other, there would not be four friends in the world.

Hate, Men, World

Blaise Pascal (1829). “Thoughts on Religion and Other Subjects”, p.276

Extremes are for us as though they were not, and we are not within their notice. They escape us, or we them. This is our true state; this is what makes us incapable of certain knowledge and of absolute ignorance... This is our natural condition, and yet most contrary to our inclination; we burn with desire to find solid ground and an ultimate sure foundation whereon to build a tower reaching to the Infinite. But our whole groundwork cracks, and the earth opens to abysses.

Ignorance, Knowledge, Desire

"Pensées" by Blaise Pascal, (Ch. 72), 1669.

The world is satisfied with words, few care to dive beneath the surface.

World, Care, Beneath The Surface

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

Betrayal, Soul, Weakness

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