If we examine our thoughts, we shall find them always occupied with the past and the future. - Blaise Pascal

It would therefore be a good thing for us to obey laws and customs because they are laws: to know that there is no right and just law to be brought in, that we know nothing about it and should consequently only follow those already accepted. In this way we should never give them up. But the people are not amenable to this doctrine, and thus, believing that truth can be found and resides in laws and customs, they believe them and take their antiquity as a proof of their truth (and not just of their authority, without truth). Thus they obey them but are liable to revolt as soon as they are shown to be worth nothing, which can happen with all laws if they are looked at from a certain point of view.

[152] Between us and heaven or hell there is only life half-way, the most fragile thing in the world.

We run heedlessly into the abyss after putting something in front of us to stop us seeing it.