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Blaise Pascal Quotes - Page 20

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

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

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

Tired, May, Arms

We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end. When we think to attach ourselves to any pointand to fasten to it, it wavers and leaves us; and if we follow it, it eludes our grasp, slips past us, and vanishes for ever. Nothing stays for us.

Knowledge, Past, Thinking

Blaise Pascal, W. F. Trotter, T. S. Eliot (2003). “Pensees”, p.19, Courier Corporation

Each man is everything to himself, for with his death everything is dead for him. That is why each of us thinks he is everything to everyone. We must not judge nature by ourselves, but by its own standards.

Men, Thinking, Judging

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

All of our miseries prove our greatness. They are the miseries of a dethroned monarch.

Greatness, Misery, Prove

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.

Crush, Men, Thinking

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

If they [Plato and Aristotle] wrote about politics it was as if to lay down rules for a madhouse. And if they pretended to treat it as something really important it was because they knew that the madmen they were talking to believed themselves to be kings and emperors. They humored these beliefs in order to calm down their madness with as little harm as possible.

Kings, Plato, Order

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.

Greatness, Men, Ignorant

When some passion or effect is described in a natural style, we find within ourselves the truth of what we hear, without knowing it was there.

Passion, Knowing, Style

There should be in eloquence that which is pleasing and that which is real; but that which is pleasing should itself be real.

Real, Being Real, Should

Blaise Pascal (1829). “Thoughts on Religion and Other Subjects”, p.284

To have no time for philosophy is to be a true philosopher.

Philosophy, Philosopher

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

Let each of us examine his thoughts

Blaise Pascal (2014). “Selected "Pensees" and Provincial Letters/Pensees et Provinciales choisies: A Dual-Language Book”, p.190, Courier Corporation

We have so exalted a notion of the human soul that we cannot bear to be despised, or even not to be esteemed by it. Man, in fact, places all his happiness in this esteem.

Respect, Men, Soul

Blaise Pascal (1828). “Thoughts on religion, and other subjects”, p.95

Nothing is thoroughly approved but mediocrity. The majority has established this, and it fixes its fangs on whatever gets beyond it either way.

Majority, Mediocrity, Way

"Thoughts of Blaise Pascal".

Sneezing absorbs all the functions of the soul just as much as the [sexual] act, but we do not draw from it the same conclusions against the greatness of man, because it is involuntary; although we bring it about, we do so involuntarily. It is not for the sake of the thing in itself but for another end, and is therefore not a sign of man's weakness, or his subjection to this act.

Sex, Greatness, Men

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

Pride counterbalances all our miseries, for it either hides them, or, if it discloses them, boasts of that disclosure. Pride has such a thorough possession of us, even in the midst of our miseries and faults, that we are prepared to sacrifice life with joy, if it may but be talked of.

Sacrifice, Pride, Joy

Blaise Pascal (1849). “Thoughts of Blaise Pascal”, p.89

The last advance of reason is to recognize that it is surpassed by innumerable things; it is feeble if it cannot realize that.

Lasts, Realizing, Reason

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

Space, Atoms, World

"Thoughts, Letters & Minor Works".

Eloquence is a painting of the thoughts.

Painting, Eloquence

"Pensées", XXIV. 88 in "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations" by Jehiel Keeler Hoyt, (pp. 219-220), 1922.

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

Valentines Day, God, Knowledge

Blaise Pascal (2015). “Pensees: Thoughts on Religion”, p.94, Letcetera Publishing

The whole title by which you possess your property, is not a title of nature but of a human institution.

Titles, Institutions, Humans

Blaise Pascal, Henry Rogers, Victor Cousin, Charles Louandre (1859). “The Thoughts, Letters and Opuscules of Blaise Pascal”, p.475

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

Beauty, Vanity, Noses

Blaise Pascal (1962). “Pensées”

Le silence est la plus grande perse cution: jamais les saints ne se sont tus. Silence is the greatest of all persecutions: no saint was ever silent.

Silence, Saint, Silent

Put the world's greatest philosopher on a plank that is wider than need be; if there is a precipe below, although his reason may convince him that he is safe, his imagination will prevail.

Imagination, Needs, World

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

Do little things as if they were great, because of the majesty of the Lord Jesus Christ who dwells in thee.

Jesus, Deeds, Littles

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

Inspirational, Funny, Sailing

Blaise Pascal, W. F. Trotter, T. S. Eliot (2003). “Pensees”, p.19, Courier Corporation

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