Blaise Pascal
Death is easier to bear without thinking of it, than the thought of death without peril.Collection: Death
It is not only old and early impressions that deceive us; the charms of novelty have the same power.Collection: Deception
All the good maxims which are in the world fail when applied to one's self.Collection: Self
Undoubtedly equality of goods is just; but, being unable to cause might to obey justice, men has made it just to obey might. Unable to strengthen justice, they have justified might--so that the just and the strong should unite, and there should be peace, which is the sovereign good.Collection: Strong
When one does not love too much, one does not love enough.Collection: Doe
Great and small suffer the same mishaps.Collection: Greatness
We are only troubled by the fears which we, and not nature, give ourselves, for they add to the state in which we are the passions of the state in which we are not.Collection: Powerful
St. Augustine teaches us that there is in each man a Serpent, an Eve, and an Adam. Our senses and natural propensities are the Serpent; the excitable desire is the Eve; and reason is the Adam. Our nature tempts us perpetually; criminal desire is often excited; but sin is not completed till reason consents.Collection: Men
No one is offended at not seeing everything; but one does not like to be mistaken, and that perhaps arises from the fact that man naturally cannot see everything, and that naturally he cannot err in the side he looks at, since the perceptions of our senses are always true.Collection: Men
There are plenty of maxims in the world; all that remains is to apply them.Collection: World
How can anyone lose who chooses to become a Christian? If, when he dies, there turns out to be no God and his faith was in vain, he has lost nothing...If, however, there is a God and a heaven and a hell. then he has gained heaven and his skeptical friends have lost everything.Collection: Christian
Perfect clarity would profit the intellect but damage the will.Collection: Math
Opinion is, as it were, the queen of the world, but force is its tyrant.Collection: Queens
Brave deeds are wasted when hidden.Collection: Brave
To make a man a saint, it must indeed be by grace; and whoever doubts this does not know what a saint is, or a man.Collection: Religious
To go beyond the bounds of moderation is to outrage humanity.Collection: Humanity
We implore the mercy of God, not that He may leave us at peace in our vices, but that He may deliver us from them.Collection: Forgiveness
Beauty is a harmonious relation between something in our nature and the quality of the object which delights us.Collection: Beauty
L'homme n'est ni ange ni be" te, et le malheur veut que qui veut faire l'ange fait la be" te. Man is neither angel nor beast.Unfortunately, he who wants to act the angel often acts the beast.Collection: Angel
Il n'y a que deux sortes d'hommes: les uns justes, qui se croient pe cheurs; les autres pe cheurs, qui se croient justes. There are only two types of people: the virtuous who believe themselves to be sinners and the sinners who believe themselves to be virtuous.Collection: Believe
We know truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart.Collection: Wisdom
[Unbelievers] think they have made great efforts to get at the truth when they have spent a few hours in reading some book out of Holy Scripture, and have questioned some cleric about the truths of the faith. After that, they boast that they have searched in books and among men in vain.Collection: Reading
True eloquence makes light of eloquence. True morality makes light of morality.Collection: Light
Parents fear the destruction of natural affection in their children. What is this natural principle so liable to decay? Habit is a second nature, which destroys the first. Why is not custom nature? I suspect that this nature itself is but a first custom, as custom is a second nature.Collection: Children
We like to be deceived.Collection: Deception
Unable to make what is just strong, we have made what is strong just.Collection: Strong
It is not permitted to the most equitable of men to be a judge in his own cause.Collection: Men
One of the greatest artifices the devil uses to engage men in vice and debauchery, is to fasten names of contempt on certain virtues, and thus fill weak souls with a foolish fear of passing for scrupulous, should they desire to put them in practice.Collection: Men
All evil stems from this-that we do. Know how to handle your solitude.Collection: Evil
It is certain that the soul is either mortal or immortal. The decision of this question must make a total difference in the principles of morals. Yet philosophers have arranged their moral system entirely independent of this. What an extraordinary blindness!Collection: Independent
The eternal Being is forever if he is at all.Collection: God
Instinct teaches us to look for happiness outside ourselves.Collection: Looks
Let it not be imagined that the life of a good Christian must be a life of melancholy and gloominess; for he only resigns some pleasures to enjoy others infinitely better.Collection: Christian
It has pleased God that divine verities should not enter the heart through the understanding, but the understanding through the heart.Collection: Heart
If ignorance were bliss, he'd be a blisterCollection: Ignorance
The man who knows God but does not know his own misery, becomes proud. The man who knows his own misery but does not know God, ends in despair...the knowledge of Jesus Christ constitutes the middle course because in him we find both God and our own misery. Jesus Christ is therefore a God whom we approach without pride, and before whom we humble ourselves without despair.Collection: Jesus
If we regulate our conduct according to our own convictions, we may safely disregard the praise or censure of others.Collection: May
There is a virtuous fear, which is the effect of faith; and there is a vicious fear, which is the product of doubt. The former leads to hope, as relying on God, in whom we believe; the latter inclines to despair, as not relying on God, in whom we do not believe. Persons of the one character fear to lose God; persons of the other character fear to find Him.Collection: Fear
God has given us evidence sufficiently clear to convince those with an open heart and mind.Collection: Heart
Man is so made that by continually telling him he is a fool he believes it, and by continually telling it to himself he makes himself believe it. For man holds an inward talk with himself, which it pays him to regulate.Collection: Believe
Il est non seulement impossible, mais inutile de conna|"tre Dieu sans Je sus-Christ. It is not only impossible, but also useless to recognize God without Jesus.Collection: Jesus
The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing. We feel it in a thousand things. I say that the heart naturally loves the Universal Being, and naturally loves itself; and it gives itself to one or the other, and hardens itself against one or the other, as it chooses...it is the heart that feels God, not the reason; this is faith.Collection: Heart
Curiosity is nothing more than vanity. More often than not we only seek knowledge to show it off.Collection: Vanity
Nature has some perfections to show that she is the image of God, and some defects to show that she is only His image.Collection: Nature
What a strange vanity painting is; it attracts admiration by resembling the original, we do not admire.Collection: Pain
Justice and truth are two such subtle points, that our tools are too blunt to touch them accurately.Collection: Stupid