Blaise Pascal Quotes

The last thing we discover in composing a work is what to put down first.

يود الإنسان أن يكون عظيما و يري أنه صغير, و يود أن يكون سعيدا و يري أنه شقي, و يود أن يكون موضع الحب و التقدير من الناس,و يري أن أخطاءه لا تجلب سوي كراهيتهم و احتقارهم.
إن الحرج الذي يقع فيه نتيجة هذا التناقض يولد لديه أسوأ النزعات الإجرامية التي يمكن تخيلها, ذلك أنه يبدأ في كره الحقيقة التي تدينه و تريه عيبه

This internal war of reason against the passions has made a division of those who would have peace into two sects. The first would renounce their passions, and become gods; the others would renounce reason, and become brute beasts. (Des Barreaux.) [157] But neither can do so, and reason still remains, to condemn the vileness and injustice of the passions, and to trouble the repose of those who abandon themselves to them; and the passions keep always alive in those who would renounce them.

Rules necessary for definitions. Not to leave any terms at all obscure or ambiguous without definition; Not to employ in definitions any but terms perfectly known or already explained.

Man is neither angel nor devil, and his tragedy is that he who tries too hard to play the first too often ends up as the second.

Todos los problemas de la humanidad parten de la incapacidad humana de sentarse calmado en una habitación.

All human evil comes from a single cause, man’s inability to sit still in a room.

Chess is the gymnasium of the mind

As we cannot be universal by knowing everything there is to be known about everything, we must know a little about everything, because it is much better to know something about everything than everything about something.

Faith certainly tells us what the senses do not, but not the contrary of what they see; it is above, not against them.

God wishes to move the will rather than the mind. Perfect clarity would help the mind and harm the will. Humble their pride.

The greatness of man is great in that he knows himself to be miserable. A tree does not know itself to be miserable. It is then being miserable to know oneself to be miserable; but it is also being great to know that one is miserable.

Imagine a number of men in chains, all under sentence of death, some of whom are each day butchered in the sight of others those remaining see their own condition in that of their fellows, and looking at each other with grief and despair await their turn. This is an image of the human condition.

If we dreamed the same thing every night, it would affect us as much as the objects we see every day. And if an artisan was sure of dreaming for twelve hours every night that he was king, I believe he would be almost as happy as a king who dreamed for twelve hours every night that he was an artisan.
...But because dreams are all different, and there is a variety even within each one, what we see in them affects us much less than what we see when we are awake, because of the continuity. This, however, is not so continuous and even that it does not change too, though less abruptly, except on rare occasions, as on a journey, when we say: 'It seems like a dream.' For life is a dream, but somewhat less changeable.

Совесть — лучшая нравоучительная книга из всех, которыми мы обладаем, в нее следует чаще всего заглядывать.