Blaise Pascal
The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.Collection: Valentines
The knowledge of God is very far from the love of Him.Collection: Knowledge
It is the fight alone that pleases us, not the victory.Collection: Alone
Two things control men's nature, instinct and experience.Collection: Experience
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.Collection: Faith
In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't.Collection: Faith
Vanity of science. Knowledge of physical science will not console me for ignorance of morality in time of affliction, but knowledge of morality will always console me for ignorance of physical science.Collection: Knowledge
Love has reasons which reason cannot understand.Collection: Love
He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God's providence to lead him aright.Collection: Truth
Small minds are concerned with the extraordinary, great minds with the ordinary.Collection: Intelligence
Eloquence is a painting of the thoughts.Collection: Communication
The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.Collection: Space
Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true.Collection: Religion
If all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends in the world.Collection: Men
Faith embraces many truths which seem to contradict each other.Collection: Faith
The struggle alone pleases us, not the victory.Collection: Alone
Our nature consists in motion; complete rest is death.Collection: Death
Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.Collection: Truth
Too much and too little wine. Give him none, he cannot find truth; give him too much, the same.Collection: Truth
Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just.Collection: Power
There are two kinds of people one can call reasonable: those who serve God with all their heart because they know him, and those who seek him with all their heart because they do not know him.Collection: God
If we examine our thoughts, we shall find them always occupied with the past and the future.Collection: Future
As men are not able to fight against death, misery, ignorance, they have taken it into their heads, in order to be happy, not to think of them at all.Collection: Men
Noble deeds that are concealed are most esteemed.Collection: Inspirational
It is not good to be too free. It is not good to have everything one wants.Collection: Good
Imagination disposes of everything; it creates beauty, justice, and happiness, which are everything in this world.Collection: Beauty
Faith is different from proof; the latter is human, the former is a Gift from God.Collection: Faith
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.Collection: Faith
Nothing gives rest but the sincere search for truth.Collection: Truth
Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer the same persons. Neither the offender nor the offended are any more themselves.Collection: Moving
When we are in love we seem to ourselves quite different from what we were before.Collection: Love
Nothing is so intolerable to man as being fully at rest, without a passion, without business, without entertainment, without care.Collection: Business
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.Collection: Nature
Man's greatness lies in his power of thought.Collection: Power
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.Collection: Men
If we must not act save on a certainty, we ought not to act on religion, for it is not certain. But how many things we do on an uncertainty, sea voyages, battles!Collection: Religion
Atheism shows strength of mind, but only to a certain degree.Collection: Strength
The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble.Collection: Nature
Since we cannot know all that there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything.Collection: Education
Men often take their imagination for their heart; and they believe they are converted as soon as they think of being converted.Collection: Imagination
Through space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an atom; through thought I comprehend the world.Collection: Space
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?Collection: War
Faith certainly tells us what the senses do not, but not the contrary of what they see; it is above, not against them.Collection: Faith
Imagination decides everything.Collection: Imagination
Human beings must be known to be loved; but Divine beings must be loved to be known.Collection: Religion
The strength of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts.Collection: Strength
Happiness is neither without us nor within us. It is in God, both without us and within us.Collection: Happiness
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.Collection: Truth
It is the heart which perceives God and not the reason. That is what faith is: God perceived by the heart, not by the reason.Collection: God
Chance gives rise to thoughts, and chance removes them; no art can keep or acquire them.Collection: Chance