Blaise Pascal
So we can only know God well by knowing our iniquities. Therefore those who have known God, without knowing their wretchedness, have not glorified Him, but have glorified themselves.Collection: Knowing
It is not certain that everything is uncertain.Collection: Math
If you want others to have a good opinion of you, say nothing.Collection: Want
And is it not obvious that, just as it is a crime to disturb the peace when truth reigns, it is also a crime to remain at peace when the truth is being destroyed?Collection: Reign
Silence is the greatest persecution; never do the saints keep themselves silent.Collection: Silence
Unless we love the truth we cannot know it.Collection: Truth And Falsehood
Nature imitates herself. A grain thrown into good ground brings forth fruit; a principle thrown into a good mind brings forth fruit. Everything is created and conducted by the same Master-the root, the branch, the fruits-the principles, the consequences.Collection: Nature
When everyone is moving towards depravity, no one seems to be moving, but if someone stops he shows up the others who are rushing on, by acting as a fixed point.Collection: Moving
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.Collection: Mean
Curiosity is only vanity. We usually only want to know something so that we can talk about it.Collection: Pride
What can be seen on earth points to neither the total absence nor the obvious presence of divinity, but to the presence of a hidden God. Everything bears this mark.Collection: Divinity
The Christian religion teaches me two points-that there is a God whom men can know, and that their nature is so corrupt that they are unworthy of Him.Collection: Christian
Reason is the slow and torturous method by which those who do not know the truth discover itCollection: Reason
There are two excesses: to exclude reason, to admit nothing but reason. The supreme achievement of reason is to realise that there is a limit to reason. Reason's last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it. It is merely feeble if it does not go as far as to realise that.Collection: Two
If God exists, not seeking God must be the gravest error imaginable. If one decides to sincerely seek for God and doesn't find God, the lost effort is negligible in comparison to what is at risk in not seeking God in the first place.Collection: Errors
We know that there is an infinite, and we know not its nature. As we know it to be false that numbers are finite, it is therefore true that there is a numerical infinity. But we know not of what kind; it is untrue that it is even, untrue that it is odd; for the addition of a unit does not change its nature; yet it is a number, and every number is odd or even (this certainly holds of every finite number). Thus we may quite well know that there is a God without knowing what He is.Collection: Change
If we let ourselves believe that man began with divine grace, that he forfeited this by sin, and that he can be redeemed only by divine grace through the crucified Christ, then we shall find peace of mind never granted to philosophers. He who cannot believe is cursed, for he reveals by his unbelief that God has not chosen to give him grace.Collection: Peace
The captain of a ship is not chosen from those of the passengers who comes from the best family.Collection: Politics
All that tends not to charity is figurative. The sole aim of the Scripture is charity.Collection: Charity
No man ever believes with a true and saving faith unless God inclines his heart; and no man when God does incline his heart can refrain from believing.Collection: Believe
Man governs himself more by impulse than reasonCollection: Men
Lust is the source of all our actions, and humanity.Collection: Humanity
Having been unable to strengthen justice, we have justified strength.Collection: Justice
Wisdom leads us back to childhood.Collection: Childhood
The best defense against logic is ignorance.Collection: Ignorance
No one is discontented at not being a king except a discrowned king ... unhappiness almost invariably indicates the existence of a road not taken, a talent undeveloped, a self not recognized.Collection: Kings
Everyone, without exception, is searching for happiness.Collection: Happiness
The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of... We know the truth not only by the reason, but by the heart." - Blaise PascalCollection: Heart
There are people who lie simply for the sake of lying.Collection: Lying
All our dignity lies in our thoughts.Collection: Lying
Plurality which is not reduced to unity is confusion; unity which does not depend on plurality is tyranny.Collection: Confusion
Passion cannot be beautiful without excess; one either loves too much or not enough.Collection: Beautiful
The arithmetical machine produces effects that approach nearer to thought than all the actions of animals. But it does nothing that would enable us to attribute will to it, as to the animals.Collection: Animal
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.Collection: Reading
The sole cause of all human misery is the inability of people to sit quietly in their rooms.Collection: Science
When we wish to correct with advantage, and to show another that he errs, we must notice from what side he views the matter, for on that side it is usually true.Collection: Views
If you believe in God you are at no disadvantage in this life, and at considerable advantage in the next. If you do not believe, but find in the next that there was a next, you are most unfortunate!Collection: Spiritual
Le silence e ternel de ces espaces infinis m'effraie. The eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills me with dread.Collection: Space
All men have happiness as their object: there is no exception. However different the means they employ, they all aim at the same end.Collection: Happiness
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.Collection: Comfort
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.Collection: Art
According to the doctrine of chance, you ought to put yourself to the trouble of searching for the truth; for if you die without worshiping the True Cause, you are lost. "But," say you, "if He had wished me to worship Him, He would have left me signs of His will." He has done so; but you neglect them. Seek them, therefore; it is well worth it.Collection: Doctrine
All the dignity of man consists in thought. Thought is therefore by its nature a wonderful and incomparable thing. It must have strange defects to be contemptible. But it has such, so that nothing is more ridiculous. How great it is in its nature! How vile it is in its defects! But what is this thought? How foolish it is!Collection: Men
How vain painting is-we admire the realistic depiction of objects which in their original state we don't admire at all.Collection: Painting
A town, a landscape are when seen from afar a town and a landscape; but as one gets nearer, there are houses, trees, tiles leaves, grasses, ants, legs of ants and so on to infinity. All this is subsumed under the name of landscape.Collection: Names
Those honor nature well, who teach that she can speak on everything...Collection: Honor
Eloquence; it requires the pleasant and the real; but the pleasant must itself be drawn from the true.Collection: Real