Blaise Pascal Quotes

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

One must know when it is right to doubt, to affirm, to submit. Anyone who does otherwise does not understand the force of reason. Some men run counter to these three principles, either affirming that everything can be proved, because they know nothing about proof, or doubting everything, because they do not know when to submit, or always submitting, because they do not know when judgment is called for.

But there are some who can only admire worldly greatness, as though there were no intellectual greatness; and others who only admire intellectual greatness, as though there were not infinitely higher things in wisdom.

De eeuwige stilte van deze eindeloze ruimte vervult me met angst.

Men, it is in vain that you seek within yourselves the cure for your miseries. All your intelligence can only bring you to realize that it is not within yourselves that you will find either truth or good.

Our own interest is another wonderful instrument for blinding us agreeably.

The whole visible world is only an imperceptible atom in the ample bosom of nature. No idea approaches it. We may enlarge our conceptions beyond all imaginable space; we only produce atoms in comparison with the reality of things. It is an infinite sphere, the centre of which is everywhere, the circumference nowhere. [30] In short it is the greatest sensible mark of the almighty power of God, that imagination loses itself in that thought.

It is not in space that I must look for my dignity, but in the organization of my thoughts. I shall have no advantage in owning estates. Through space the universe grasps and engulfs me like a pinpoint; but through thought I can grasp it . . . . All our dignity consists, therefore, of thought. It is from there that we must be lifted up and not from space and time, which we could never fill. So let us work on thinking well. That is the principle of morality.

The will is one of the chief organs of belief, not because it creates belief, but because things are true or false according to the aspect by which we judge them. When the will likes one aspect more than another, it deflects the mind from considering the qualities of the one it does not care to see. Thus the mind, keeping in step with the will, remains looking at the aspect preferred by the will and so judges by what it sees there.

"This dog is mine," said those poor children; "that is my place in the sun." Here is the beginning and the image of the usurpation of all the earth.

La grandeur de l'homme est grande en ce qu'il se connaît misérable

« La vanité est si ancrée dans le cœur de l’homme qu’un soldat, un goujat, un cuisinier, un crocheteur se vante et veut avoir ses admirateurs ; et les philosophes mêmes en veulent. Et ceux qui écrivent contre veulent avoir la gloire d’avoir bien écrit ; et ceux qui lisent veulent avoir la gloire de l’avoir lu ; et moi qui écris ceci, ai peut-être cette envie ».

But what is nature? For is custom not natural? I am much afraid that nature is itself only a first custom, as custom is a second nature.

Järelikult tuleb õiglus ja jõud ühendada; ja selleks teha nii, et selle käes, kes on õiglane, oleks jõud, või see, kelle käes on jõud, oleks õiglane

Thus men who are naturally conscious of what they are shun nothing, so much as rest; they would do anything to be disturbed.