Blaise Quotes & Sayings

Thus men who are naturally conscious of what they are shun nothing, so much as rest; they would do anything to be disturbed. — Blaise Pascal

Knowing God without knowing our wretchedness leads to pride. Knowing our wretchedness without knowing God leads to despair. Knowing Jesus Christ is the middle course, because in him we find both God and our wretchedness. — Blaise Pascal

All great amusements are dangerous to the Christian life; but among all those which the world has invented there is none more to be feared than the theater. It is a representation of the passions so natural and so delicate that it excites them and gives birth to them in our hearts, and, above all, to that of love. — 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

Do little things as if they were great, because of the majesty of the Lord Jesus Christ who dwells in thee. — Blaise Pascal

It is natural for the mind to believe, and for the will to love; [47] so that, for want of true objects, they must attach themselves to false. — Blaise Pascal

Two contrary reasons. We must begin with that, otherwise we cannot understand anything and everything is heretical. And even at the end of each truth we must add that we are bearing the opposite truth in mind. — Blaise Pascal

We know the truth not only through our reason but also through our heart. It is through the latter that we know first principles, and reason, which has nothing to do with it, tries in vain to refute them. — Blaise Pascal

We never keep to the present. We recall the past; we anticipate the future as if we found it too slow in coming and were trying to hurry it up, or we recall the past as if to stay its too rapid flight. We are so unwise that we wander about in times that do not belong to us, and do not think of the only one that does; so vain that we dream of times that are not and blindly flee the only one that is. The fact is the present usually hurts. — Blaise Pascal

Kind words produce their own image in men's souls; and a beautiful image it is. They soothe and quiet and comfort the hearer. They shame him out of his sour, morose, unkind feelings. We have not yet begun to use kind words in such abundance as they ought to be used. — Blaise Pascal

Men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when they do it for religious convictions. — Blaise Pascal

Jesus Christ came to tell men that they have no enemies but themselves. — Blaise Pascal

We are not satisfied with real life; we want to live some imaginary life in the eyes of other people and to seem different from what we actually are. — Blaise Pascal

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

Vanity is so firmly anchored in man's heart that a soldier, a camp follower, a cook or a porter will boast and expect admirers, and even philosophers want them; those who write against them want to enjoy the prestige of having written well, those who read them want the prestige of having read them, and perhaps I who write this want the same thing. — Blaise Pascal

Most experts today subscribe to some variations of the incongruity theory, the idea that humor arises when people discover there's an inconsistency between what they expect to happen and what actually happens. Or, as seventeenth-century French philosopher Blaise Pascal put it when he first came up with the concept, "Nothing produces laughter more than a surprising disproportion between that which one expects and that which one sees. — Joel Warner

Imagine a number of men in chains, all under sentence of death, some of whom are each day butchered in the sight of others those remaining see their own condition in that of their fellows, and looking at each other with grief and despair await their turn. This is an image of the human condition. — Blaise Pascal

Vanity is illustrated in the cause and effect of love, as in the case of Cleopatra. — Blaise Pascal

You are in the same manner surrounded with a small circle of persons ... full of desire. They demand of you the benefits of desire ... You are therefore properly the king of desire ... equal
in this to the greatest kings of the earth ... It is desire that constitutes their power; that is, the possession of things that men covet. — Blaise Pascal

The last thing we decide in writing a book is what to put first. — Blaise Pascal

We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end. — Blaise Pascal

For action, whatever its immediate purpose, also implies relief at doing something, anything, and the joy of exertion. This is the optimism that is inherent in, and proper and indispensable to action, for without it nothing would ever be undertaken. It in no way suppresses the critical sense or clouds the judgment. On the contrary this optimism sharpens the wits, it creates a certain perspective and, at the last moment, lets in a ray of perpendicular light which illuminates all one's previous calculations, cuts and shuffles them and deals you the card of success, the winning number. — Blaise Cendrars

If you do not love too much, you do not love enough. — Blaise Pascal

This religion so great in miracles, in men holy, pure and irreproachable, in scholars, great witnesses and martyrs, established kings - David - Isaiah, a prince of the blood; so great in knowledge, after displaying all its miracles and all its wisdom, rejects it all and says that it offers neither wisdom nor signs, but only the Cross and folly. — Blaise Pascal

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

There is no arena in which vanity displays itself under such a variety of forms as in conversation. — Blaise Pascal

We think very little of time present; we anticipate the future, as being too slow, and with a view to hasten it onward, we recall the past to stay it as too swiftly gone. We are so thoughtless, that we thus wander through the hours which are not here, regardless only of the moment that is actually our own. — Blaise Pascal

Men are so completely fools by necessity that he is but a fool in a higher strain of folly who does not confess his foolishness. — Blaise Pascal

God has given us evidence sufficiently clear to convince those with an open heart and mind ... — Blaise Pascal

One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life, and there is nothing better. — Blaise Pascal

It is much better to know something about everything than to know everything about one thing. — Blaise Pascal

Eloquence is a painting of thought; and thus those who, after having painted it, add something more, make a picture instead of a portrait. — Blaise Pascal

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

Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness. — Blaise Pascal

Blaise decided that the thing he would remember most about this London was the sour stink of it. The overripe foulness of the streets made him gag, and when a woman emptied a chamber pot from a top window, nearly catching him in its spray, he bent over and wretched, much to the Nightsneaks' amusement. — Teresa Flavin

The weakness of human reason appears more evidently in those who know it not than in those who know it. — Blaise Pascal

Force rules the world-not opinion; but it is opinion that makes use of force. — Blaise Pascal

The power of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special efforts, but by his ordinary doing. — Blaise Pascal

The sum of a man's problems come from his inability to be alone in a silent room. — Blaise Pascal

Not the zeal alone of those who seek Him proves God, but the blindness of those who seek Him not. — Blaise Pascal

Mutual cheating is the foundation of society. — Blaise Pascal

For after all, what is man in creation? Is he not a mere cipher compared with the infinite, a whole compared to the nothing, a mean between zero & all, infinitely remote from understanding of either extreme? Who can follow these astonishing processes? The Author of these wonders understands them, but no one else can. — Blaise Pascal

When intuition and logic agree, you are always right. — Blaise Pascal

We feel neither extreme heat nor extreme cold; qualities that are in excess are so much at variance with our feelings that they are impalpable: we do not feel them, though we suffer from their effects. — Blaise Pascal

Anyone who does not see the vanity of the world is very vain himself. So who does not see it, apart from young people whose lives are all noise, diversions, and thoughts for the future?
But take away their diversion and you will see them bored to extinction. Then they feel their nullity without recognizing it, for nothing could be more wretched than to be intolerably depressed as soon as one is reduced to introspection with no means of diversion. — Blaise Pascal

Let man reawake and consider what he is compared with the reality of things; regard himself lost in this remote corner of Nature; and from the tiny cell where he lodges, to wit the Universe, weigh at their true worth earth, kingdoms, towns, himself. What is a man face to face with infinity? — Blaise Pascal

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

We must kill them in war, just because they live beyond the river. If they lived on this side, we would be called murderers. — Blaise Pascal

Those great efforts of intellect, upon which the mind sometimes touches, are such that it cannot maintain itself there. It only leaps to them, not as upon a throne, forever, but merely for an instant. — Blaise Pascal

Death itself is less painful when it comes upon us unawares than the bare contemplation of it, even when danger is far distant. — Blaise Pascal

Philosophers.-We are full of things which take us out of ourselves. — Blaise Pascal

Since we cannot know all there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything. — Blaise Pascal

What astonishes us most is to observe that everyone is not astonished at his own weakness. — Blaise Pascal

Nature, which alone is good, is wholly familiar and common. — Blaise Pascal

Without the help of selfishness, the human animal would never have developed. Egoism is the vine by which man hoisted himself out of the swamp and escaped from the jungle. — Blaise Cendrars

Man's sensitivity to little things and insensitivity to the greatest things are marks of a strange disorder. — Blaise Pascal

If prayer fails I am in a greater darkness yet, not knowing whether I have presumed too much or believed too little. — Morris L. West

Montaigne is wrong in declaring that custom ought to be followed simply because it is custom, and not because it is reasonable or just. — Blaise Pascal

It is not the length of years but a multitude of generations that makes things obscure. For truth is only perverted when men change. — Blaise Pascal

The greatness of man is great in that he knows himself to be miserable. A tree does not know itself to be miserable. It is then being miserable to know oneself to be miserable; but it is also being great to know that one is miserable. — Blaise Pascal

They would do better to say: "Our book," "Our commentary," "Our history," etc., because there is in them usually more of other people's than their own. — Blaise Pascal

The world is ruled by force, not by opinion; but opinion uses force. — Blaise Pascal

You always admire what you really don't understand. — Blaise Pascal

Fear not, provided you fear; but if you fear not, then fear. — Blaise Pascal

Man is so made that if he is told often enough that he is a fool he believes it. — Blaise Pascal

The motions of Grace, the hardness of heart; external circumstances. — Blaise Pascal

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

We never do evil so fully and cheerfully as when we do it out of conscience. — Blaise Pascal

Those who write against vanity want the glory of having written well, and their readers the glory of reading well, and I who write this have the same desire, as perhaps those who read this have also. — Blaise Pascal

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

I can readily conceive of a man without hands or feet; and I could conceive of him without a head, if experience had not taught me that by this he thinks, Thought then, is the essence of man, and without this we cannot conceive of him. — Blaise Pascal

The mind must not be forced; artificial and constrained manners fill it with foolish presumption, through unnatural elevation and vain and ridiculous inflation, instead of solid and
vigorous nutriment. — Blaise Pascal

Console-toi, tu ne me chercherais pas si tu ne m'avais trouve . Comfort yourself.You would not seek me if you had not found me. — Blaise Pascal

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. — Blaise Pascal

When I consider the small span of my life absorbed in the eternity of all time, or the small part of space which I can touch or see engulfed by the infinite immensity of spaces that I know not and that know me not, I am frightened and astonished to see myself here instead of there ... now instead of then. — Blaise Pascal

Merely according to reason, nothing is just in itself, everything shifts with time. Custom is the whole of equity for the sole reason that it is accepted. — Blaise Pascal

Few friendships would survive if each one knew what his friend says of him behind his back — Blaise Pascal

Notwithstanding the sight of all our miseries, which press upon us and take us by the throat, we have an instinct which we cannot repress, and which lifts us up. — Blaise Pascal

How can anyone lose who chooses to become a Christian? If, when he dies, there turns out to be no God and his faith was in vain, he has lost nothing ... If, however, there is a God and a heaven and a hell. then he has gained heaven and his skeptical friends have lost everything ... — Blaise Pascal

Which is the more believable of the two, Moses or China? — Blaise Pascal

The exterior must be joined to the interior to obtain anything from God, that is to say, we must kneel, pray with the lips, and soon, in order that proud man, who would not submit himself to God, may be now subject to the creature. — Blaise Pascal

Voluptuousness, like justice, is blind, but that is the only resemblance between them. — Blaise Pascal

Our own interests are still an exquisite means for dazzling our eyes agreeably. — Blaise Pascal

Nothing is so conformable to reason as to disavow reason. — Blaise Pascal

We desire truth and find within ourselves only uncertainty. — Blaise Pascal

For nature is an image of Grace, and visible miracles are images of the invisible. — Blaise Pascal

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

If magistrates had true justice, and if physicians had the true art of healing, they would have no occasion for square caps; the majesty of these sciences would itself be venerable enough. — Blaise Pascal

All err the more dangerously because each follows a truth. Their mistake lies not in following a falsehood but in not following another truth. — Blaise Pascal

Therefore, those to whom God has imparted religion by intuition are very fortunate and justly convinced. But to those who do not have it, we can give it only by reasoning, waiting for God to give them spiritual insight, without which faith is only human and useless for salvation. — Blaise Pascal

Description of man: dependence, longing for independence, need. — Blaise Pascal

Man is clearly made to think. It is his whole dignity and his whole merit; and his whole duty is to think as he ought. And the order of thought is to begin with ourselves, and with our Author and our end. — Blaise Pascal

Cleopatra's nose, had it been shorter, the whole face of the world would have been changed. — Blaise Pascal

There is internal war in man between reason and the passions. If he had only reason without passions ... If he had only passions without reason ... But having both, he cannot be without strife, being unable to be at peace with the one without being at war with the other. Thus he is always divided against, and opposed to himself. — Blaise Pascal

Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere. — Blaise Pascal

Thus passes away all man's life. Men seek rest in a struggle against difficulties; and when they have conquered these, rest becomes insufferable. For we think either of the misfortunes we have or of those which threaten us. — Blaise Pascal

It is of dangerous consequence to represent to man how near he is to the level of beasts, without showing him at the same time his greatness. It is likewise dangerous to let him see his greatness without his meanness. It is more dangerous yet to leave him ignorant of either; but very beneficial that he should be made sensible of both. — Blaise Pascal

Education produces natural intuitions, and natural intuitions are erased by education. — 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

My attraction has never been to computers per se, but to the fact that they offer a highly leveraged way to invent magic. — Blaise Aguera Y Arcas