Blaise Pascal - Pensées

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To ridicule philosophy is really to philosophize.

Blaise Pascal
It is not shameful for man to succumb under pain, and it is shameful for him to succumb under pleasure.

Blaise Pascal
For after all, what is man in nature? A nothing in respect of that which is infinite, an all in respect of nothing, a middle betwixt nothing and all.

Blaise Pascal
Habit is a second nature that destroys the first. But what is nature? Why is habit not natural? I am very much afraid that nature itself is only a first habit, just as habit is a second nature.

Blaise Pascal
The last thing one knows in constructing a work is what to put first.

Blaise Pascal
What amazes me the most is to see that everyone is not amazed at his own weakness.

Blaise Pascal
How vain painting is, exciting admiration by its resemblance to things of which we do not admire the originals.

Blaise Pascal
I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being unable to sit still in a room.

Blaise Pascal
All the misfortunes of men derive from one single thing, which is their inability to be at ease in a room.

Blaise Pascal
If our condition were truly happy we should not need to divert ourselves from thinking about it.

Blaise Pascal
For it is to judgment that perception belongs, as science belongs to intellect. Intuition is the part of judgment, mathematics of intellect.

Blaise Pascal
Instead of complaining that God had hidden himself, you will give Him thanks for having revealed so much of Himself.

Blaise Pascal
But is it probable that probability gives assurance?

Blaise Pascal
Having been unable to strengthen justice, we have justified strength.

Blaise Pascal
I have a hundred times wished that if a God maintains Nature, she should testify to Him unequivocally, and that, if the signs she gives are deceptive, she should suppress them altogether.

Blaise Pascal
One has followed the other in an endless circle, for it is certain that as man's insight increases so he finds both wretchedness and greatness within himself. In a word man knows he is wretched. Thus he is wretched because he is so, but he is truly great because he knows it.

Blaise Pascal
Mathematicians who are only mathematicians have exact minds, provided all things are explained to them by means of definitions and axioms; otherwise they are inaccurate and insufferable, for they are only right when the principles are quite clear.

Blaise Pascal
Our nature consists in movement; absolute rest is death.
In French: Notre nature est dans le mouvement; le repos entier est la mort.

Blaise Pascal
Nature has placed us so well in the middle that if we change one side of the balance, we change the other also.

Blaise Pascal
Because... you have believed from childhood that a box was empty when you saw nothing in it, you have believed in the possibility of a vacuum.

Blaise Pascal
If we dreamed the same thing every night, it would affect us much as the objects we see every day. And if a common workman were sure to dream every night for twelve hours that he was a king, I believe he would be almost as happy as a king who should dream every night for twelve hours on end that he was a common workman.

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

Blaise Pascal
Nature has some perfections to show that she is the image of God, and some defects, to show that she is only His image.

Blaise Pascal
We do not rest satisfied with the present.... So imprudent we are that we wander in the times which are not ours and do not thinkof the only one which belongs to us; and so idle are we that we dream of those times which are no more and thoughtlessly overlook that which alone exists. For the present is generally painful to us.

Blaise Pascal
The last thing one settles in writing a book is what one should put in first.

Blaise Pascal
Take away probability, and you can no longer please the world; give probability, and you can no longer displease it.

Blaise Pascal
Being unable to cure death, wretchedness, and ignorance, men have decided, in order to be happy, not to think about such things.

Blaise Pascal
The spaces of the universe enfold me and swallow me up like a speck; but I, by the power of thought, may comprehend the universe.

Blaise Pascal
The sole cause of man's unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.

Blaise Pascal
We believe we are far more capable of reaching the center of things than of embracing their circumference.

Blaise Pascal