Blaise Pascal Quotes

L'art de persuader consiste autant en celui d'agréer qu'en celui de convaincre, tant les hommes se gouvernent plus par caprice que par raison.

Ci Puo' essere quakcosa di piu' stupido del fatto che un uomo abbia il diritto di uccidermi perche' vive sull'altra sponda di un fiume e il suo sovrano ha avuto una lite con il mio, anche se io non ho litigato con lui?

The weather and my mood have little connection. I have my foggy and my fine days within me; my prosperity or misfortune has little to do with the matter.

I set it down as a fact that if all men knew what each said of the other, there would not be four friends in the world.

The right way is to want what God wants. Christ alone leads to it. Via Veritas.1

La netteté d’esprit cause aussi la netteté de la passion; c’est pourquoi un esprit grand et net aime avec ardeur, et il voit distinctement ce qu’il aime.

Those whose wisdom is imaginary enjoy the favor of judges similarly qualified.

Știința lucrurilor exterioare nu mă poate consola de necunoașterea moralei în vremuri de amărăciune; dar știința moravurilor mă va consola întotdeauna de ignorarea științelor exterioare.

This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself. God alone is man’s true good, and since man abandoned him it is a strange fact that nothing in nature has been found to take his place: stars, sky, earth, elements, plants, cabbages, leeks, animals, insects, calves, serpents, fever, plague, war, famine, vice, adultery, incest. Since losing his true good, man is capable of seeing it in anything, even his own destruction, although it is so contrary at once to God, to reason and to nature.

There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of each man...

It is not the length of years but a multitude of generations that makes things obscure. For truth is only perverted when men change.

Rules necessary for demonstrations. To prove all propositions, and to employ nothing for their proof but axioms fully evident of themselves, or propositions already demonstrated or admitted; Never to take advantage of the ambiguity of terms by failing mentally to substitute definitions that restrict or explain them.

they do not know that they seek only
the chase and not the quarry.

If you act externally with men in conformity with your rank, you should recognize, by a more secret but truer thought, that you have nothing naturally superior to them.

Man is neither angel nor beast, and it is unfortunately the case that anyone trying to act the angel acts the beast.