Quotes by
Blaise Pascal |
1623-1662 , French thinker
French mathematician, physicist, religious philosopher, inventor and writer. He laid the foundation for the modern theory of probabilities, formulated what came to be known as Pascal’s principle of pressure, and invented a mechanical calculator. His theories had an impact on such later philosophers as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Henri Bergson and also on the Existentialists.Following a religious experience in 1654, he began writing influential works on philosophy and theology. His two most famous works date from this period: the Lettres provinciales and the Pensées.
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Quotations
| • | All of humanity’s problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone. 29 |
| • | Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. 18 |
| • | Once your soul has been enlarged by a truth, it can never return to its original size. 17 |
| • | I lay it down as a fact that if all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends in the world. 13 |
| • | In difficult times carry something beautiful in your heart. 13 |
| • | Reason's last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it. 12 |
| • | There is a God-shaped hole in the life of every man. 12 |
| • | I would prefer an intelligent hell to a stupid paradise. 11 |
| • | I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter 8 |
| • | Curiosity is only vanity. We usually only want to know something so that we can talk about it. 8 |
| • | Nothing is so intolerable to man as being fully at rest, without a passion, without business, without entertainment, without care. 8 |
| • | The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me. 8 |
| • | The heart has its reasons which reason knows not. 8 |
| • | In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't. 7 |
| • | It's not those who write the laws that have the greatest impact on society. It's those who write the songs. 7 |
| • | Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much. 7 |
| • | The more I see of Mankind, the more I prefer my dog. 7 |
| • | Do you wish people to think well of you? Don't speak well of yourself. 6 |
| • | To understand is to forgive. 6 |
| • | Clarity of mind means clarity of passion, too; this is why a great and clear mind loves ardently and sees distinctly what it loves. 5 |
| • | If you gain, you gain all. If you lose, you lose nothing. Wager then, without hesitation, that He exists. 5 |
| • | Since we cannot know all there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything. 5 |
| • | You always admire what you really don't understand. 5 |
| • | Habit is a second nature that destroys the first. 5 |
| • | Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness. 4 |
| • | Nature is an infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. 4 |
| • | Faith embraces many truths which seem to contradict each other. 4 |
| • | God would be unjust if we were not guilty. 4 |
| • | Justice without force is powerless; force without justice is tyrannical. 3 |
| • | Little things comfort us because little things distress us. 3 |
| • | If we examine our thoughts, we shall find them always occupied with the past and the future. 3 |
| • | It is incomprehensible that God should exist, and it is incomprehensible that he should not exist. 3 |
| • | Cleopatra's nose, had it been shorter, the whole face of the world would have been changed. 2 |
| • | People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive. 2 |
