Blaise Pascal's Quotes

Too much and too little wine. Give him none, he cannot find truth; give him too much, the same.

Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness.

Nothing is as approved as mediocrity, the majority has established it and it fixes it fangs on whatever gets beyond it either way.

Chance gives rise to thoughts, and chance removes them; no art can keep or acquire them.

If we examine our thoughts, we shall find them always occupied with the past and the future.

Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere.

Two things control men's nature, instinct and experience.

We know the truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart.

I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being unable to sit still in a room.

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?

Nothing is so intolerable to man as being fully at rest, without a passion, without business, without entertainment, without care.

Our nature consists in motion; complete rest is death.

Man's true nature being lost, everything becomes his nature; as, his true good being lost, everything becomes his good.

Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.

Law, without force, is impotent.

Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true.

We view things not only from different sides, but with different eyes; we have no wish to find them alike.

You always admire what you really don't understand.

Desire and force between them are responsible for all our actions; desire causes our voluntary acts, force our involuntary.

That we must love one God only is a thing so evident that it does not require miracles to prove it.

The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble.

Nothing gives rest but the sincere search for truth.

The greatness of man is great in that he knows himself to be wretched. A tree does not know itself to be wretched.

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.

People are usually more convinced by reasons they discovered themselves than by those found by others.

The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men.

We never love a person, but only qualities.

It is not good to be too free. It is not good to have everything one wants.

If our condition were truly happy, we would not seek diversion from it in order to make ourselves happy.

Imagination decides everything.

Justice and truth are too such subtle points that our tools are too blunt to touch them accurately.

The self is hateful.

Vanity is but the surface.

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.

We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end.

A trifle consoles us, for a trifle distresses us.

Custom is our nature. What are our natural principles but principles of custom?

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.

Faith certainly tells us what the senses do not, but not the contrary of what they see; it is above, not against them.

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.

It is incomprehensible that God should exist, and it is incomprehensible that he should not exist.

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.

It is the fight alone that pleases us, not the victory.

Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed.

Men blaspheme what they do not know.

Nothing fortifies scepticism more than the fact that there are some who are not sceptics; if all were so, they would be wrong.

One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life and there is nothing better.

The consciousness of the falsity of present pleasures, and the ignorance of the vanity of absent pleasures, cause inconstancy.

The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.

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.

Through space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an atom; through thought I comprehend the world.

We only consult the ear because the heart is wanting.

Concupiscence and force are the source of all our actions; concupiscence causes voluntary actions, force involuntary ones.

Earnestness is enthusiasm tempered by reason.

Evil is easy, and has infinite forms.

Faith embraces many truths which seem to contradict each other.

Men often take their imagination for their heart; and they believe they are converted as soon as they think of being converted.

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.

The charm of fame is so great that we like every object to which it is attached, even death.

The knowledge of God is very far from the love of Him.

We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put something before us to prevent us seeing it.

When we see a natural style, we are astonished and charmed; for we expected to see an author, and we find a person.

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.

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.

There are two kinds of people one can call reasonable: those who serve God with all their heart because they know him, and those who seek him with all their heart because they do not know him.

As men are not able to fight against death, misery, ignorance, they have taken it into their heads, in order to be happy, not to think of them at all.

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.

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.

Habit is a second nature that destroys the first. But what is nature? Why is habit not natural? I am very much afraid that nature itself is only a first habit, just as habit is a second nature.

Continuous eloquence wearies. Grandeur must be abandoned to be appreciated. Continuity in everything is unpleasant. Cold is agreeable, that we may get warm.

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.

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.

Vanity of science. Knowledge of physical science will not console me for ignorance of morality in time of affliction, but knowledge of morality will always console me for ignorance of physical science.

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.