He adopts the opinion of others like a monk in the Sorbonne. [Fr., Il opine du bonnet comme un moine en Sorbonne.]


Blaise Pascal

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More Blaise Pascal

When we are in love we seem to ourselves quite different from what we were before.
BLAISE PASCAL
We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end.
BLAISE PASCAL
The sensitivity of men to small matters, and their indifference to great ones, indicates a strange i...
BLAISE PASCAL
Love has reasons which reason cannot understand.
BLAISE PASCAL
He no longer loves the person whom he loved ten years ago. I quite believe it. She is no longer the ...
BLAISE PASCAL
I do not admire a virtue like valour when it is pushed to excess, if I do not see at the same time t...
BLAISE PASCAL
The present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter.
BLAISE PASCAL
On vanity: The nose of Cleopatra: if it had been shorter, the face of the earth would have changed.
BLAISE PASCAL
The last act is bloody, however fine the rest of the play. They throw earth over your head and it is...
BLAISE PASCAL
Justice is what is established; and thus all our established laws will necessarily be regarded as ju...
BLAISE PASCAL
Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed.
BLAISE PASCAL
The immortality of the soul is a matter which is of so great consequence to us and which touches us ...
BLAISE PASCAL
People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by t...
BLAISE PASCAL
Do you wish people to think well of you? Don't speak well of yourself.
BLAISE PASCAL
Noble deeds that are concealed are most esteemed.
BLAISE PASCAL
I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.
BLAISE PASCAL
Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we...
BLAISE PASCAL
Man's greatness lies in his power of thought.
BLAISE PASCAL
If you gain, you gain all. If you lose, you lose nothing. Wager then, without hesitation, that He ex...
BLAISE PASCAL
Justice without force is powerless; force without justice is tyrannical.
BLAISE PASCAL
It is not good to have too much liberty. It is not good to have all one wants.
BLAISE PASCAL
All man's miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone.
BLAISE PASCAL
The property of power is to protect.
BLAISE PASCAL
Nature is an infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.
BLAISE PASCAL
Vanity is so secure in the heart of man that everyone wants to be admired: even I who write this, ...
BLAISE PASCAL
Those are weaklings who know the truth and uphold it as long as it suits their purpose, and then aba...
BLAISE PASCAL
If we examine our thoughts, we shall find them always occupied with the past and the future.
BLAISE PASCAL
Man is obviously made for thinking. Therein lies all his dignity and his merit; and his whole duty i...
BLAISE PASCAL
Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature; but he is a thinking reed. There is no need for the whole...
BLAISE PASCAL
Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true.
BLAISE PASCAL
Human beings must be known to be loved; but Divine beings must be loved to be known.
BLAISE PASCAL
We never live, but we hope to live; and as we are always arranging to be happy, it must be that we n...
BLAISE PASCAL
Between us and heaven or hell there is only life, which is the frailest thing in the world.
BLAISE PASCAL
I have made this letter a rather long one, only because I didn't have the leisure to make it shorter...
BLAISE PASCAL
If I had more time I would write a shorter letter.
BLAISE PASCAL
The last thing we decide in writing a book is what to put first.
BLAISE PASCAL
The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what to put first.
BLAISE PASCAL
It is not good to be too free. It is not good to have everything one wants.
BLAISE PASCAL
How I hate these follies of not believing in the Eucharist, &c.! If the Gospel be true, if Jesus...
BLAISE PASCAL
Il n'est pas certain que tout soit incertain.
(Translation: It is not certain that everything i...
BLAISE PASCAL
If we let ourselves believe that man began with divine grace, that he forfeited this by sin, and tha...
BLAISE PASCAL
The charm of fame is so great that we like every object to which it is attached, even death.
BLAISE PASCAL
The pagans do not know God, and love only the earth. The Jews know the true God, and love only the ...
BLAISE PASCAL
Words differently arranged have a different meaning, and meanings differently arranged have a differ...
BLAISE PASCAL
I would prefer an intelligent hell to a stupid paradise.
BLAISE PASCAL
People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what ...
BLAISE PASCAL
The heart has its reasons which reason knows not.
BLAISE PASCAL
Nothing is so intolerable to man as being fully at rest, without a passion, without business, withou...
BLAISE PASCAL
However vast a man's spiritual resources, he is capable of but one great passion.
BLAISE PASCAL
We must learn our limits. We are all something but none of us are everything.
BLAISE PASCAL
To find recreation in amusement is not happiness.
BLAISE PASCAL
To have no time for philosophy is to be a true philosopher.
BLAISE PASCAL
The origins of disputes between philosophers is, that one class of them have undertaken to raise man...
BLAISE PASCAL
People are usually more convinced by reasons they discovered themselves than by those found out by o...
BLAISE PASCAL
We like security: we like the pope to be infallible in matters of faith, and grave doctors to be so ...
BLAISE PASCAL
There are only three types of people; those who have found God and serve him; those who have not fou...
BLAISE PASCAL
The more intelligent one is, the more men of originality one finds. Ordinary people find no differen...
BLAISE PASCAL
Anyone who considers himself in this way will be seized with terror and, discovering that the mass n...
BLAISE PASCAL
Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed. The entire universe n...
BLAISE PASCAL
What a chimera then is man. What a novelty! What a monster, what a chaos, what a contradiction, what...
BLAISE PASCAL
We only consult the ear because the heart is wanting.
BLAISE PASCAL
Law, without force, is impotent.
BLAISE PASCAL
Beauty is a harmonious relation between something in our nature and the quality of the object which ...
BLAISE PASCAL
Man finds nothing so intolerable as to be in a state of complete rest, without passions, without occ...
BLAISE PASCAL
On the occasions when I have pondered over men's various activities, the dangers and worries they ar...
BLAISE PASCAL
Men never do evil so fully and cheerfully as when we do it out of conscience.
BLAISE PASCAL
We are only falsehood, duplicity, contradiction; we both conceal and disguise ourselves from ourselv...
BLAISE PASCAL
The war existing between the senses and reason.
BLAISE PASCAL
Jesus is the God whom we can approach without pride and before whom we can humble ourselves without ...
BLAISE PASCAL
The highest order of mind is accused of folly, as well as the lowest. Nothing is thoroughly approved...
BLAISE PASCAL
Imagination disposes of everything; it creates beauty, justice, and happiness, which is everything i...
BLAISE PASCAL
The whole visible world is only an imperceptible atom in the ample bosom of nature. No idea approach...
BLAISE PASCAL
One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of lif...
BLAISE PASCAL
Desire and force between them are responsible for all our actions; desire causes our voluntary acts,...
BLAISE PASCAL
We like to be deceived.
BLAISE PASCAL
The charm of fame is so great that we like every object to which it is attached, even death.
BLAISE PASCAL
Even those who write against fame wish for the fame of having written well, and those who read their...
BLAISE PASCAL
Faith is different from proof; the latter is human, the former is a Gift from God.
BLAISE PASCAL
Faith embraces many truths which seem to contradict each other.
BLAISE PASCAL
Faith certainly tells us what the senses do not, but not the contrary of what they see; it is above,...
BLAISE PASCAL
It is the heart which perceives God and not the reason. That is what faith is: God perceived by the ...
BLAISE PASCAL
In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who d...
BLAISE PASCAL
Two things control men's nature, instinct and experience.
BLAISE PASCAL
The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing: we know this in countless ways.
BLAISE PASCAL
Habit is the second nature which destroys the first.
BLAISE PASCAL
Habit is a second nature that destroys the first. But what is nature? Why is habit not natural? I am...
BLAISE PASCAL
If you would have people speak well of you, then do not speak well of yourself.
BLAISE PASCAL
Evil is easy, and has infinite forms.
BLAISE PASCAL
I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being unable to sit still and quiet in ...
BLAISE PASCAL
Earnestness is enthusiasm tempered by reason.
BLAISE PASCAL
The struggle alone pleases us, not the victory.
BLAISE PASCAL
I maintain that, if everyone knew what others said about him, there would not be four friends in the...
BLAISE PASCAL
If all men knew what each said of the other, there would not be four friends in the world.
BLAISE PASCAL
Ugly deeds are most estimable when hidden.
BLAISE PASCAL
If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager then without hesitation, that He exi...
BLAISE PASCAL
He who does not know his way to the sea should take a river for his guide.
BLAISE PASCAL
It is superstitious to put one's hopes in formalities, but arrogant to refuse to submit to them.
BLAISE PASCAL
Nothing is as approved as mediocrity, the majority has established it and it fixes it fangs on whate...
BLAISE PASCAL
It is right that what is just should be obeyed. It is necessary that what is strongest should be obe...
BLAISE PASCAL
To go beyond the bounds of moderation is to outrage humanity.
BLAISE PASCAL
I have made this letter longer, because I have not had the time to make it shorter.
BLAISE PASCAL
The gospel to me is simply irresistible.
BLAISE PASCAL
Animals do not admire each other. A horse does not admire its companion.
BLAISE PASCAL
Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.
BLAISE PASCAL
Nothing gives rest but the sincere search for truth.
BLAISE PASCAL
Our nature consist in motion; complete rest is death.
BLAISE PASCAL
There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who think they are sinners and the sinners who think ...
BLAISE PASCAL
The only shame is to have none
BLAISE PASCAL
It is the fight alone that pleases us, not the victory.
BLAISE PASCAL
The stream is always purer at its source. [Fr., Les choses valent toujours mieux dans leur source....
BLAISE PASCAL
The vanity of the sciences. Physical science will not console me for the ignorance of morality in th...
BLAISE PASCAL
Those who do not hate their own selfishness and regard themselves as more important than the rest of...
BLAISE PASCAL
It is in vain, 0 men, that you seek within yourselves the cure for your miseries. All your insight o...
BLAISE PASCAL
All man's miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone.
BLAISE PASCAL
If all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends in the world.
BLAISE PASCAL
Men never do evil so fully and so happily as when they do it for conscience's sake.
BLAISE PASCAL
What use is it to us to hear it said of a man that he has thrown off the yoke, that he does not beli...
BLAISE PASCAL
I have made this letter longer than usual, because I lack the time to make it short.
BLAISE PASCAL
If the nose of Cleopatra had been shorter, the whole face of the earth would have been changed.
BLAISE PASCAL
Man's greatness lies in his power of thought.
BLAISE PASCAL
You always admire what you really don't understand.
BLAISE PASCAL
It is false zeal to keep truth while wounding charity
BLAISE PASCAL
Men of quality are not threatened by women of equality
BLAISE PASCAL
Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever i...
BLAISE PASCAL
Nature is an infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere
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 heart has reasons that reason cannot know.
BLAISE PASCAL
Eloquence is a painting of the thoughts.
BLAISE PASCAL
Do you wish people to think well of you? Don't speak well of yourself.
BLAISE PASCAL
The eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills me with dread.
BLAISE PASCAL
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
BLAISE PASCAL
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction.
BLAISE PASCAL
I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being unable to sit still in a room.
BLAISE PASCAL
Our notion of symmetry is derived from the human face. Hence, we demand symmetry horizontally and in...
BLAISE PASCAL
Curiosity is only vanity. We usually only want to know something so that we can talk about it.
BLAISE PASCAL
Vanity of science. Knowledge of physical science will not console me for ignorance of morality in ti...
BLAISE PASCAL
Little things console us because little things afflict us.
BLAISE PASCAL
The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble.
BLAISE PASCAL
You always admire what you really don't understand.
BLAISE PASCAL
Justice and truth are too such subtle points that our tools are too blunt to touch them accurately.
BLAISE PASCAL
The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.
BLAISE PASCAL
Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gambl...
BLAISE PASCAL
Small minds are concerned with the extraordinary, great minds with the ordinary.
BLAISE PASCAL
Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer the same persons. Neither the offend...
BLAISE PASCAL
All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.
BLAISE PASCAL
In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who d...
BLAISE PASCAL
Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere.
BLAISE PASCAL
Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side...
BLAISE PASCAL
Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much.
BLAISE PASCAL
In each action we must look beyond the action at our past, present, and future state, and at others ...
BLAISE PASCAL
I lay it down as a fact that if all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friend...
BLAISE PASCAL
Atheism shows strength of mind, but only to a certain degree.
BLAISE PASCAL
We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put something before us to prevent us seeing it.
BLAISE PASCAL
If man made himself the first object of study, he would see how incapable he is of going further. Ho...
BLAISE PASCAL
Through space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an atom; through thought I comprehend...
BLAISE PASCAL
When we see a natural style, we are astonished and charmed; for we expected to see an author, and we...
BLAISE PASCAL
Words differently arranged have a different meaning, and meanings differently arranged have differen...
BLAISE PASCAL
Nothing is as approved as mediocrity, the majority has established it and it fixes its fangs on what...
BLAISE PASCAL
Rivers are roads that move and carry us whither we wish to go. [Fr., Les rivieres sont des chemins...
BLAISE PASCAL
He who does not know his way to the sea should take a river for his guide. [Fr., Les rivieres son...
BLAISE PASCAL
Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed. The entire universe n...
BLAISE PASCAL
I have only made this letter rather long because I have not had time to make it shorter. [Fr., Je...
BLAISE PASCAL
Imagination disposes of everything; it creates beauty, justice, and happiness, which are everything ...
BLAISE PASCAL
If our condition were truly happy, we would not seek diversion from it in order to make ourselves ha...
BLAISE PASCAL
We view things not only from different sides, but with different eyes; we have no wish to find them ...
BLAISE PASCAL
To go beyond the bounds of moderation is to outrage humanity.
BLAISE PASCAL
I have made this [letter] longer, because I have not had the time to make it shorter.
BLAISE PASCAL
A jester, a bad character. [Fr., Diseur de bon mots, mauvais caractere.]
BLAISE PASCAL
It is not only old and early impressions that deceive us; the charms of novelty have the same power.
BLAISE PASCAL
We think very little of time present; we anticipate the future, as being too slow, and with a view t...
BLAISE PASCAL
By a peculiar prerogative, not only each individual is making daily advances in the sciences, and ma...
BLAISE PASCAL
For after all what is man in nature? A nothing in relation to infinity, all in relation to nothing, ...
BLAISE PASCAL
Man is to himself the most wonderful object in nature; for he cannot conceive what the body is, stil...
BLAISE PASCAL
We know truth, not only by reason, but also by the heart.
BLAISE PASCAL
We are generally the better persuaded by the reasons we discover ourselves than by those given to us...
BLAISE PASCAL
The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of.
BLAISE PASCAL
Since we cannot know all that there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about e...
BLAISE PASCAL
People are usually more convinced by reasons they discovered themselves than by those found by other...
BLAISE PASCAL
One must know oneself, if this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of lif...
BLAISE PASCAL
Man is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness from which he emerges and the infinity in which h...
BLAISE PASCAL
Few men speak humbly of humility, chastely of chastity, skeptically of skepticism.
BLAISE PASCAL
Force rules the world, and not opinion; but opinion is that which makes use of force.
BLAISE PASCAL
Curiosity is only vanity. Most frequently we wish not to know, but to talk. We would not take a sea ...
BLAISE PASCAL
Vanity is so secure in the heart of man that everyone wants to be admired : even I who write this, a...
BLAISE PASCAL
The multitude which is not brought to act as a unity, is confusion. That unity which has not its ori...
BLAISE PASCAL
Any unity which doesn't have its origin in the multitudes is tyranny.
BLAISE PASCAL
Clarity of mind means clarity of passion, too; this is why a great and clear mind loves ardently and...
BLAISE PASCAL
What a strange vanity painting is; it attracts admiration by resembling the original, we do not admi...
BLAISE PASCAL
Thus so wretched is man that he would weary even without any cause for weariness... and so frivolous...
BLAISE PASCAL
The present is never our goal: the past and present are our means: the future alone is our goal. Thu...
BLAISE PASCAL
A mere trifle consoles us for a mere trifle distresses us.
BLAISE PASCAL
Noble deeds that are concealed are most esteemed
BLAISE PASCAL
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction
BLAISE PASCAL
The consciousness of the falsity of present pleasures, and the ignorance of the vanity of absent ple...
BLAISE PASCAL
The weather and my mood have little connection. I have my foggy and my fine days within me; my prosp...
BLAISE PASCAL
Therefore, those to whom God has imparted religion by intuition are very fortunate and justly convin...
BLAISE PASCAL
It is good to be tired and wearied by the futile search after the true good, that we may stretch out...
BLAISE PASCAL
The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.
BLAISE PASCAL
We are usually convinced more easily by reasons we have found ourselves than by reasons which have o...
BLAISE PASCAL
Not only do we not know God except through Jesus Christ; We do not even know ourselves except throug...
BLAISE PASCAL