What does this desire and this inability of ours proclaim to us but that there was once in man a genuine happiness, of which nothing now survives but the mark and the empty outline and this he vainly tries to fill from everything that lies around him, seeking from things that are not there the help that he does not get from those that are present Yet they are quite incapable of filling the gap, because this infinite gulf can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object - that is, God, Himself. He alone is man's veritable good, and since man has deserted Him it is a strange thing that there is nothing in nature that has not been capable of taking His place for man stars, sky, earth, elements, plants, cabbages, leeks, animals, insects, calves, serpents, fever, plague, war, famine, vices, adultery, incest. And since he has lost the true good, everything can equally appear to him as such - even his own destruction, though that is so contrary at once to God, to reason, and to nature.
More Quotes from Blaise Pascal:
When the passions become masters, they are vices.Blaise Pascal
The struggle alone pleases us, not the victory.
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Ugly deeds are most estimable when hidden.
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All human evil comes from a single cause, man's inability to sit still in a room.
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Faith is a sounder guide than reason. Reason can only go so far, but faith has no limits.
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Our notion of symmetry is derived form the human face. Hence, we demand symmetry horizontally and in breadth only, not vertically nor in depth.
Blaise Pascal
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Based on Topics: Animals Quotes, God Quotes, Happiness Quotes, Infinity Quotes, Insects Quotes, Man Quotes, Nature Quotes, Reasoning Quotes, Vice & Virtue Quotes, War & Peace QuotesBased on Keywords: cabbages, calves, incest, leeks, serpents, veritable
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