I maintain that, if everyone knew what others said about him, there would not be four friends in the world; this is evident from the quarrels caused … - Blaise Pascal

I lay it down as a fact that if all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends in the world.

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

Just as we harm the understanding, we harm the feelings also.

The world is a good judge of things, for it is in natural ignorance, which is man's true state. The sciences have two extremes which meet. The first is the pure natural ignorance in which all men find themselves at birth. The other extreme is that reached by great intellects, who, having run through all that men can know, find they know nothing, and come back again to that same ignorance from which they set out; but this is a learned ignorance which is conscious of itself. Those between the two, who have departed from natural ignorance and not been able to reach the other, have some smattering of this vain knowledge and pretend to be wise. These trouble the world and are bad judges of everything. The people and the wise constitute the world; these despise it, and are despised. They judge badly of everything, and the world judges rightly of them.