Blaise Pascal
Vanity is but the surface.
The greatness of man is great in that he knows himself to be wretched. A tree does not know itself to be wretched.
Justice is what is established; and thus all our established laws will necessarily be regarded as just without examination, since they are established.
Man's true nature being lost, everything becomes his nature; as, his true good being lost, everything becomes his good.
The weather and my mood have little connection. I have my foggy and my fine days within me; my prosperity or misfortune has little to do with the matter.
The finite is annihilated in the presence of the infinite, and becomes a pure nothing. So our spirit before God, so our justice before divine justice.
Nothing fortifies scepticism more than the fact that there are some who are not sceptics; if all were so, they would be wrong.
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.
Our soul is cast into a body, where it finds number, time, dimension. Thereupon it reasons, and calls this nature necessity, and can believe nothing else.
Desire and force between them are responsible for all our actions; desire causes our voluntary acts, force our involuntary.
Nothing is as approved as mediocrity, the majority has established it and it fixes its fangs on whatever gets beyond it either way.
I can well conceive a man without hands, feet, head. But I cannot conceive man without thought; he would be a stone or a brute.
We only consult the ear because the heart is wanting.
Even those who write against fame wish for the fame of having written well, and those who read their works desire the fame of having read them.
We conceal it from ourselves in vain - we must always love something. In those matters seemingly removed from love, the feeling is secretly to be found, and man cannot possibly live for a moment without it.
If you gain, you gain all. If you lose, you lose nothing. Wager then, without hesitation, that He exists.
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.
Justice and truth are too such subtle points that our tools are too blunt to touch them accurately.
We never love a person, but only qualities.
Custom is our nature. What are our natural principles but principles of custom?
Men blaspheme what they do not know.
Reason commands us far more imperiously than a master; for in disobeying the one we are unfortunate, and in disobeying the other we are fools.
If man made himself the first object of study, he would see how incapable he is of going further. How can a part know the whole?
The consciousness of the falsity of present pleasures, and the ignorance of the vanity of absent pleasures, cause inconstancy.
We like security: we like the pope to be infallible in matters of faith, and grave doctors to be so in moral questions so that we can feel reassured.
The gospel to me is simply irresistible.
That we must love one God only is a thing so evident that it does not require miracles to prove it.
If I believe in God and life after death and you do not, and if there is no God, we both lose when we die. However, if there is a God, you still lose and I gain everything.Collection: Believe
There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.Collection: God
Don't try to add more years to your life. Better add more life to your years.Collection: Death
Either Christianity is true or it's false. If you bet that it's true, and you believe in God and submit to Him, then if it IS true, you've gained God, heaven, and everything else. If it's false, you've lost nothing, but you've had a good life marked by peace and the illusion that ultimately, everything makes sense. If you bet that Christianity is not true, and it's false, you've lost nothing. But if you bet that it's false, and it turns out to be true, you've lost everything and you get to spend eternity in hell.Collection: Good Life
People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive.Collection: People
The more I see of Mankind, the more I prefer my dog.Collection: Dog
In difficult times carry something beautiful in your heart.Collection: Beautiful
There are only three types of people; those who have found God and serve him; those who have not found God and seek him, and those who live not seeking, or finding him. The first are rational and happy; the second unhappy and rational, and the third foolish and unhappy.Collection: People
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.Collection: Thoughtful
Apart from Jesus Christ, we do not know what is our life, nor our death, nor God, nor ourselves.Collection: Jesus
True eloquence scorns eloquence.Collection: Eloquence
Jesus Christ came to tell men that they have no enemies but themselves.Collection: Jesus
Happiness is neither within us, nor without us. It is in the union of ourselves with God.Collection: Happiness
Look for the truth, it wants to be found.Collection: Looks
Man is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness from which he emerges and the infinity in which he is engulfed.Collection: Inspirational
Once your soul has been enlarged by a truth, it can never return to its original size.Collection: Truth
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.Collection: Real
One-half of the ills of life come because men are unwilling to sit down quietly for thirty minutes to think through all the possible consequences of their acts.Collection: Spiritual
If we do not know ourselves to be full of pride, ambition, lust, weakness, misery, and injustice, we are indeed blind. And if, knowing this, we do not desire deliverance, what can we say of a man...?Collection: Ambition
When intuition and logic agree, you are always right.Collection: Math
We must learn our limits. We are all something, but none of us are everything.Collection: Wisdom
To call a king "Prince" is pleasing, because it diminishes his rank.Collection: Kings