Blaise Pascal Quotes (292 Quotes)

Noble deeds that are concealed are most esteemed.

All human evil comes from a single cause, man's inability to sit still in a room.

Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him?

Perfect clarity would profit the intellect but damage the will.

Imagination decides everything.

Ugly deeds are most estimable when hidden.

If we let ourselves believe that man began with divine grace, that he forfeited this by sin, and that he can be redeemed only by divine grace through the crucified Christ then we shall find a peace of mind never granted to philosophers. He who cannot believe is cursed, for he reveals by his unbelief that God has not chosen to give him grace.

Vanity is so secure in the heart of man that everyone wants to be admired even I who write this, and you who read this

Those who do not hate their own selfishness and regard themselves as more important than the rest of the world are blind because the truth lies elsewhere

The self is hateful.

Without Jesus Christ man must be in vice and misery with Jesus Christ man is free from vice and misery in Him is all our virtue and all our happiness. Apart from Him there is but vice, misery, darkness, death, despair.

To deny, to believe, and to doubt well are to a man as the race is to a horse.

It is not permitted to the most equitable of men to be a judge in his own cause.

Chance gives rise to thoughts, and chance removes them; no art can keep or acquire them.

Mahomet established a religion by putting his enemies to death Jesus Christ by commanding his followers to lay down their lives

The last proceeding of reason is to recognize that there is an infinity of things which are beyond it. There is nothing so conformable to reason as this disavowal of reason.

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

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.

Man's true nature being lost, everything becomes his nature; as, his true good being lost, everything becomes his good.

Justice is what is established; and thus all our established laws will necessarily be regarded as just without examination, since they are established.

The heart has reasons which the reason cannot understand.

If it is an extraordinary blindness to live without investigating what we are, it is a terrible one to live an evil life, while believing in God

Between us and heaven or hell there is only life, which is the frailest thing in the world.

The strength of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts.

Continuous eloquence wearies. Grandeur must be abandoned to be appreciated. Continuity in everything is unpleasant. Cold is agreeable, that we may get warm.

Men never do evil so fully and cheerfully as when we do it out of conscience.

Men often take their imagination for their heart; and they believe they are converted as soon as they think of being converted.

Faith indeed tells what the senses do not tell, but not the contrary of what they see. It is above them and not contrary to them.

Anything that is written to please the author is worthless.

Clarity of mind means clarity of passion, too this is why a great and clear mind loves ardently and sees distinctly what he loves.

Nature confuses the skeptics and reason confutes the dogmatists

If I had more time I would write a shorter letter.

Custom is our nature. What are our natural principles but principles of custom?

We like to be deceived.

The immortality of the soul is a matter which is of so great consequence to us and which touches us so profoundly that we must have lost all feeling to be indifferent about it.

Unable to make what is just strong, we have made what is strong just.

We do not worry about being respected in towns through which we pass. But if we are going to remain in one for a certain time, we do worry. How long does this time have to be.

Man is but a reed, the most weak in nature, but he is a thinking reed

It is natural for the mind to believe and for the will to love; so that, for want of true objects, they must attach themselves to false.

The heart has reasons that reason cannot know.

This religion taught to her children what men have only been able to discover by their greatest knowledge.

The multitude which is not brought to act as a unity, is confusion. That unity which has not its origin in the multitude is tyranny.

The heart has its reasons which reason does not know.

The world is satisfied with words. Few appreciate the things beneath.

I maintain that, if everyone knew what others said about him, there would not be four friends in the world.

The strength of a man's virtue must not be measured by his efforts, but by his ordinary life.

The supreme function of reason is to show man that some things are beyond reason.

We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put something before us to prevent us seeing it.

That we must love one God only is a thing so evident that it does not require miracles to prove it.

We are only falsehood, duplicity, contradiction; we both conceal and disguise ourselves from ourselves.