Blaise Pascal Quotes (292 Quotes)


    The sensitivity of men to small matters, and their indifference to great ones, indicates a strange inversion.

    When we encounter a natural style we are always surprised and delighted, for we thought to see an author and found a man.

    It is not certain that everything is uncertain.


    Console thyself, thou wouldst not seek Me, if thou hadst not found Me


    When we are in love we seem to ourselves quite different from what we were before.

    The vanity of the sciences. Physical science will not console me for the ignorance of morality in the time of affliction. But the science of ethics will always console me for the ignorance of the physical sciences.

    There are some who speak well and write badly. For the place and the audience warm them, and draw from their minds more than they think of without that warmth.

    Justice without strength is powerless strength without justice is tyrannical.

    Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature but he is a thinking reed. There is no need for the whole universe to take up arms to crush him a vapor, a drop of water is enough to kill him. But even if the universe were to crush him, man would still be nobler than his slayer, because he knows that he is dying and the advantage the universe has over him. The universe knows nothing of this.

    Reason is the slow and torturous method by which those who do not know the truth discover it


    Man is obviously made for thinking. Therein lies all his dignity and his merit and his whole duty is to think as he ought.

    When we see a natural style, we are quite surprised and delighted, for we expected to see an author and we find a man.

    It is your own assent to yourself, and the constant voice of your own reason, and not of others, that should make you believe.

    Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed.

    Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists.


    Justice without force is powerless; force without justice is tyrannical.

    The present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter.

    Reason is the slow and tortuous method by which these who do not know the truth discover it. The heart has its own reason which reason does not know.

    Imagination cannot make fools wise but she can make them happy, to the envy of reason, who can only make her friends miserable

    For as old age is that period of life most remote from infancy, who does not see that old age in this universal man ought not to be sought in the times nearest his birth, but in those most remote from it

    We arrive at truth, not by reason only, but also by the heart.

    Nature has perfections, in order to show that she is the image of God and defects, to show that she is only his image.

    We only consult the ear because the heart is wanting.

    Man finds nothing so intolerable as to be in a state of complete rest, without passions, without occupation, without diversion, without effort. Then he feels his nullity, loneliness, inadequacy, dependence, helplessness, emptiness.

    If you would have people speak well of you, then do not speak well of yourself.

    A trifle consoles us, for a trifle distresses us.

    The last thing that we discover in writing a book is to know what to put at the beginning.

    I can well conceive a man without hands, feet, head. But I cannot conceive man without thought; he would be a stone or a brute.

    Those who are accustomed to judge by feeling do not understand the process of reasoning, because they want to comprehend at a glance and are not used to seeking for first principles. Those, on the other hand, who are accustomed to reason from first principles do not understand matters of feeling at all, because they look for first principles and are unable to comprehend at a glance.

    It is good to be tired and wearied by the futile search after the true good, that we may stretch out our arms to the Redeemer.

    Weariness.Nothing is so insufferable to man as to be completely at rest, without passions, without business, without diversion, without study. He then feels his nothingness, his forlornness, his insufficiency, his dependence, his weakness, his emptin


    Our soul is cast into a body, where it finds number, time, dimension. Thereupon it reasons, and calls this nature necessity, and can believe nothing else.

    Faith embraces many truths which seem to contradict each other.

    I made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it short.

    Through space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an atom; through thought I comprehend the world.

    Eloquence - The art of saying things in such a way that those to whom we speak may listen to them with pleasure.

    Imagination disposes of everything; it creates beauty, justice, and happiness, which are everything in this world.

    Christianity is strange. It bids man recognise that he is vile, even abominable, and bids him desire to be like God. Without such a counterpoise, this dignity would make him horribly vain, or this humiliation would make him terribly abject.

    All of our reasoning ends in surrender to feeling.

    Religion is so great a thing that it is right that those who will not take the trouble to seek it if it be obscure, should be deprived of it.

    Man is but a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed.

    We must learn our limits. We are all something but none of us are everything.

    Man is neither angel nor beast and the misfortune is that he who would act the angel acts the beast.

    To deny, to believe, and to doubt absolutely -- this is for man what running is for a horse.

    If our condition were truly happy, we would not seek diversion from it in order to make ourselves happy.

    Nothing fortifies scepticism more than the fact that there are some who are not sceptics; if all were so, they would be wrong.


    More Blaise Pascal Quotations (Based on Topics)


    Man - God - Reasoning - Nature - Truth - Mind - World - Belief & Faith - Happiness - Infinity - Thought & Thinking - Time - Vice & Virtue - Life - Justice - War & Peace - Sense & Perception - People - Death & Dying - View All Blaise Pascal Quotations

    Related Authors


    Heraclitus - Xenophanes - Protagoras - Plotinus - Maimonides - Leo Strauss - Friedrich von Schelling - Epicurus - Diogenes - Charles de Montesquieu


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