The light of conscience ... enters the eyes of the soul, as the light of the sun enters the eyes of the body; and to open the former requires no grea… - Alexandre Vinet

A conscience that is only sluggish, may submit to truth when it happens to meet with it: but a conscience under the seductions of passion, will not submit to it without great difficulty, and will devise some pretext, some expedient, for resisting the voice of truth that openly rebukes it.

Man feels in himself passions which ought to obey, and a reason which ought to command. But it is in vain: the war is endless; victory on either side is impossible. Neither can reason subdue the passions, nor can the passions put reason to silence. p. 17

There is, in Pascal's book — his drama, as we have ventured to call it — a person, real or fictitious, a protagonist; and to analyse the work of Pascal, is, in other words, to unfold the successive thoughts of this mysterious character. This is what we are about to attempt. p. 8