Blaise Pascal - People Quotes

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People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive.

Blaise Pascal
It is not your strength and your natural power that subjects all these people to you. Do not pretend then to rule them by force or to treat them with harshness. Satisfy their reasonable desires; alleviate their necessities; let your pleasure consist in being beneficent; advance them as much as you can, and you will act like the true king of desire.

Blaise Pascal
In proportion as our own mind is enlarged we discover a greater number of men of originality. Commonplace people see no difference between one man and another.

Blaise Pascal
People call eloquence the facility that some have in speaking alone and for a great length of time.

Blaise Pascal
What would you say of that man who was made king by the error of the people, if he had so far forgotten his natural condition as to imagine that this kingdom was due to him, that he deserved it, and that it belonged to him of right? You would marvel at his stupidity and folly. But is there less in the people of rank who live in so strange a forgetfulness of their natural condition?

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

Blaise Pascal
We are so presumptuous that we should like to be known all over the world, even by people who will only come when we are no more. Such is our vanity that the good opinion of half a dozen of the people around us gives us pleasure and satisfaction.

Blaise Pascal
People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come in to the mind of others.

Blaise Pascal
In order to enter into a real knowledge of your condition, consider it in this image: A man was cast by a tempest upon an unknown island, the inhabitants of which were in trouble to find their king, who was lost; and having a strong resemblance both in form and face to this king, he was taken for him, and acknowledged in this capacity by all the people.

Blaise Pascal
There are two kinds of people one can call reasonable: those who serve God with all their heart because they know him, and those who seek him with all their heart because they do not know him.

Blaise Pascal
Do you wish people to think well of you? Don't speak well of yourself.

Blaise Pascal
It is dangerous to say to the people that their laws are unjust, for they obey them only because they believe them just.

Blaise Pascal
God is surrounded with people full of love who demand of him the benefits of love which are in his power: thus he is properly the king of love.

Blaise Pascal
It is dangerous to tell the people that the laws are unjust; for they obey them only because they think them just. Therefore it isnecessary to tell them at the same time that they must obey them because they are laws, just as they must obey superiors, not because they are just, but because they are superiors. In this way all sedition is prevented.

Blaise Pascal
That something so obvious as the vanity of the world should be so little recognized that people find it odd and surprising to be told that it is foolish to seek greatness; that is most remarkable.

Blaise Pascal