Blaise Pascal Quotes

The last function of reason is to recognize that there are an infinity of things which surpass it.

Knowing God without knowing our wretchedness leads to pride. Knowing our wretchedness without knowing God leads to despair. Knowing Jesus Christ is the middle course, because in him we find both God and our wretchedness.

Reason's last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it.

There is enough light for those who only desire to see, and enough obscurity for those who have a contrary disposition

And if one loves me for my judgement, memory, he does not love me, for I can lose these qualities without losing myself. Where, then, is this Ego, if it be neither in the body nor in the soul? And how love the body or the soul, except for these qualities which do not constitute me, since they are perishable? For it is impossible and would be unjust to love the soul of a person in the abstract and whatever qualities might be therein. We never, then, love a person, but only qualities.
Let us, then, jeer no more at those who are honoured on account of rank and office; for we love a person only on account of borrowed qualities.

Anyone who does not see the vanity of the world is very vain himself. So who does not see it, apart from young people whose lives are all noise, diversions, and thoughts for the future?
But take away their diversion and you will see them bored to extinction. Then they feel their nullity without recognizing it, for nothing could be more wretched than to be intolerably depressed as soon as one is reduced to introspection with no means of diversion.

Symmetry is what we see at a glance; based on the fact that there is no reason for any difference...

The heart has reasons that reason cannot know.

Even those who write against fame wish for the fame of having written well, and those who read their works desire the fame of having read them.

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

La dernière chose qu'on trouve en faisant un ouvrage est de savoir celle qu'il faut mettre la première. (The last thing one settles in writing a book is what one should put in first.)

Those honor nature well, who teach that she can speak on everything.

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

We must keep our thought secret, and judge everything by it, while talking like the people.

If God exists, not seeking God must be the gravest error imaginable. If one decides to sincerely seek for God and doesn't find God, the lost effort is negligible in comparison to what is at risk in not seeking God in the first place.