Blaise Pascal
We know the truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart.Collection: Truth
Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed.Collection: Nature
The charm of fame is so great that we like every object to which it is attached, even death.Collection: Death
In each action we must look beyond the action at our past, present, and future state, and at others whom it affects, and see the relations of all those things. And then we shall be very cautious.Collection: Future
There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who think they are sinners and the sinners who think they are righteous.Collection: Men
Thus so wretched is man that he would weary even without any cause for weariness... and so frivolous is he that, though full of a thousand reasons for weariness, the least thing, such as playing billiards or hitting a ball, is sufficient enough to amuse him.Collection: Sports
Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere.Collection: Nature
I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being unable to sit still in a room.
Justice without force is powerless; force without justice is tyrannical.
Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much.
We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put something before us to prevent us seeing it.
We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end.
All human evil comes from a single cause, man's inability to sit still in a room.
I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.
The last act is bloody, however pleasant all the rest of the play is: a little earth is thrown at last upon our head, and that is the end forever.
People are usually more convinced by reasons they discovered themselves than by those found by others.
You always admire what you really don't understand.
The supreme function of reason is to show man that some things are beyond reason.
Truly it is an evil to be full of faults; but it is a still greater evil to be full of them and to be unwilling to recognize them, since that is to add the further fault of a voluntary illusion.
The only shame is to have none.
We are only falsehood, duplicity, contradiction; we both conceal and disguise ourselves from ourselves.
Words differently arranged have a different meaning, and meanings differently arranged have different effects.
If our condition were truly happy, we would not seek diversion from it in order to make ourselves happy.
The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men.
Do you wish people to think well of you? Don't speak well of yourself.
Concupiscence and force are the source of all our actions; concupiscence causes voluntary actions, force involuntary ones.
People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come in to the mind of others.
The present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter.
A trifle consoles us, for a trifle distresses us.
Jesus is the God whom we can approach without pride and before whom we can humble ourselves without despair.
Little things console us because little things afflict us.
We view things not only from different sides, but with different eyes; we have no wish to find them alike.
The sensitivity of men to small matters, and their indifference to great ones, indicates a strange inversion.
It is good to be tired and wearied by the futile search after the true good, that we may stretch out our arms to the Redeemer.
The self is hateful.
Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness.
Few friendships would survive if each one knew what his friend says of him behind his back.
Earnestness is enthusiasm tempered by reason.
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.
When we see a natural style, we are astonished and charmed; for we expected to see an author, and we find a person.
I maintain that, if everyone knew what others said about him, there would not be four friends in the world.
Continuous eloquence wearies. Grandeur must be abandoned to be appreciated. Continuity in everything is unpleasant. Cold is agreeable, that we may get warm.
Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.
Between us and heaven or hell there is only life, which is the frailest thing in the world.
Evil is easy, and has infinite forms.
To have no time for philosophy is to be a true philosopher.
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.
It is incomprehensible that God should exist, and it is incomprehensible that he should not exist.
Law, without force, is impotent.