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Christianity is strange. It bids man recognise that he is vile, even abominable, and bids him desire to be like God. Without such a counterpoise, this dignity would make him horribly vain, or this humiliation would make him terribly abject.


Blaise Pascal

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God would never make man in his image,
because that would then make him as vain as what man is.
ANTHONY T. HINCKS When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER Let not a man do what his sense of right bids him not to do, nor desire what it forbids him to desir...
MENCIUS Humour is meant, in a literal sense, to make game of man; that is, to dethrone him from his official...
G.K. CHESTERTON I am so proud. He would be so happy. This would just make him so happy.
FRANKIE HARRIS If it were true love, he would never make you sacrifice your dignity to be with him. He would respec...
SHANNON L. ALDER ...that people often say about Him: "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't...
C. S. LEWIS Once a person learns to read the signs of love and thus to believe it, love leads him into the open ...
HANS URS VON BALTHASAR Yes. The opposite of love is not hate. It is indifference. That is why few people find God. They go ...
CHRISTOPHER PIKE To make a man perfectly happy tell him he works too hard, that he spends too much money, that he is ...
HELEN ROWLAND To make a man perfectly happy tell him he works too hard, that he spends too much money, that he is ...
HELEN ROWLAND I hope the Catholics don't get a hold of him and make him a saint. That would make him most miserabl...
MALACHY MCCOURT He was a very strong, formidable candidate and there are options that would make him a strong candid...
BRIAN ROTHENBERG An educated man believing in a this-that vile sky-god rewarding him-her, but punishing your enemies ...
FAKEER ISHAVARDAS I knew there was no point in debating a man such as this. The world bent and contorted itself to fit...
DAVID LISS And the Lord God said, It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for hi...
BIBLE To speak pidgin to a Negro makes him angry, because he himself is a pidgin-nigger-talker. But, I wil...
FRANTZ FANON Never propose to thy self such a God, as thou wert not bound to imitate: Thou mistakest God, if thou...
JOHN DONNE No man is invincible, and therefore no man can fully understand that which would make him invincible
MIYAMOTO MUSASHI I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ...
C.S. LEWIS He is my son. But if a son does not care about the dignity of his family, God can take him. You cann...
ABDUL MANAN Thus so wretched is man that he would weary even without any cause for weariness... and so frivolous...
BLAISE PASCAL Pray Him to give you what the Scriptures call "an honest and good heart," or "a perfect heart;" and,...
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN If Jesus Christ were to come today, people would not even crucify him. They would ask him to dinner,...
THOMAS CARLYLE Your brother beat him almost to death, Temujin. He held him and kicked him until he cried like a chi...
CONN IGGULDEN But I'm sure he would recognise the players around him who help him. They propel you forward.
ELLERY HANLEY Here is the thing about God. He is so big and so perfect that we can't really understand Him. We can...
LAUREN F. WINNER It's the first time anybody has come back at him. He needed it. This race will make a man of him.
PETER BRETTE When we treat man as he is, we make him worse than he is; when we treat him as if he already were w...
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE When we treat man as he is, we make him worse than he is; when we treat him as if he already were wh...
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE Easter Commemoration of John Donne, Priest, Poet, 1631 God, who is Almighty, Alpha and Omega, Fi...
JOHN DONNE What seems strange is that Obama elicits such extreme dislike when, in fact, he is an exemplary fami...
DAVID HORSEY "Oh! what a vile and abject thing is man unless he can erect himself above humanity." Here is a b...
MICHAEL EYQUEN DE MONTAIGNE He is a man of great personal power, honor and honesty. I saw in him a really good man who would mak...
DENNIS HAYSBERT If he could sleep on it. He would make his bed with white sheets And disappear into the white, Like ...
DONALD JUSTICE At such times, the heart of man turns instictively towards his Maker. In prosperity, and whenever th...
SOLOMON NORTHUP It is difficult to make a man miserable while he feels he is worthy of himself and claims kindred to...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN A lot of this is just people he'd hang around with, he'd tell them about how this woman is ruining h...
HARLAND BRAUN Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature; but he is a thinking reed. There is no need for the whole...
BLAISE PASCAL Treat a man as he appears to be, and you make him worse. But treat a man as if he were what he poten...
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE God is not some lesser employee, as many try to make Him out to be: rather He is the ultimate Treasu...
CRISS JAMI For a man like this to tape him without his knowledge and use it this way is nothing short of betray...
LUC LAVOIE Falling for him would be like cliff diving. It would be either the most exhilarating thing that ever...
COLLEEN HOUCK What is evil neither can nor should be loved; for it is not one’s duty to be a lover of evil or to...
ARISTOTLE Of Course God does not consider you hopeless. If He did, He would not be moving you to seek Him (and...
C.S. LEWIS He's got major decisions to make. I would never try to ask him or persuade him to do anything that h...
ANDY PETTITTE I feel like, God expects me to be human. I feel like, God likes me just the way I am: broken and emp...
C. JOYBELL C. You may fancy the Lord had His own power to fall back upon. But that would have been to Him just the...
GEORGE MACDONALD You must make your choice: either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or somethin...
C.S. LEWIS A man's desire is to find a good woman, that can make him smile, a woman that can understand him and...
LIAH BARE A man without force, is without the essential dignity of humanity. Human nature is so constituted, ...
FREDERICK DOUGLASS How vile and despicable war seems to me! I would rather be hacked to pieces than take part in such a...
ALBERT EINSTEIN It is difficult to make a man miserable while he feels worthy of himself and claims kindred to the g...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN God created man and, finding him not sufficiently alone, gave him a companion to make him feel his s...
PAUL VALéRY God created man and, finding him not sufficiently alone, gave him a companion to make him feel his s...
PAUL VALERY Assuming that he believes at all, the everyday Christian is a pitiful figure, a man who really canno...
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE We had 11 or 12 bids for this one. We're getting preliminary bids in now and we expect the same kind...
BOB NICHOLSON The worst mockery God can make of a moralist is that He compels him to be a
solipsist.
KEDAR JOSHI That’s cool, Leo.” Johnson was damn near standing on top of him as he spoke, but he’d be damne...
A.E. VIA It is divine simplicity that enables Christians to meaningfully confess that God is most absolute in...
JAMES E. DOLEZAL Now what sort of man or woman or monster would stroke a centipede I have ever seen? And here is my g...
WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Now what sort of man or woman or monster would stroke a centipede I have ever seen? ''And here is my...
WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS We all know him to be a proud, unpleasant sort of man; but this would be nothing if you really liked...
JANE AUSTEN I did not know one person who played with him or against him who didn't like him. The smile was cont...
RICK AGUILERA Christ is not God, not the saviour of the world, but a mere man, a sinful man and an abominable idol...
MATTHEW HAMMOND A free America... means just this: individual freedom for all, rich or poor, or else this system of ...
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT Mr. Moony presents his compliments to Professor Snape, and begs him to keep his abnormally large nos...
J.K. ROWLING Second-hand American was spreading over him in patches, like mange or lichen. He was infested, garbl...
MARGARET ATWOOD It is a dogma of the Roman Church that the existence of God can be proved by natural reason. Now thi...
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN I'd sit back in amazement of, one, him not having a leg, and two, the stuff he was doing without a l...
JOSH PARRY I'd sit back in amazement of, one, him not having a leg, and two, the stuff he was doing without a l...
DAVID PARRY This is going to be a big jump for him. I usually don't like to do this sort of thing, but he's got ...
BARCLAY TAGG One of the biggest decisions this organization will make is whether B.J. Upton is going to be the ev...
CHUCK LAMAR True love is an intense desire for the presence of its object. God is only ours in reality when we a...
ALEXANDER MACLAREN God cannot resist the man who desires Him ardently. The chief reason why we do not find God is we do...
JIMVIRLE/JINVIRLE Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and the scholars. I will n...
BLAISE PASCAL To have with somebody relationship or to be friends or something, you must make him nerves to feel n...
DEYTH BANGER I don't think I denied him. He's such a solid player. Even on the last putt, I thought he was going ...
CHARLIE WI We were pushing it just trying to get him into this meet. A 54 or 55 would have seemed like progress...
ERROL LOGUE Among individuals, the most certain way to make a Man your Enemy, is to tell him you esteem him such...
GEORGE WASHINGTON The American white man (not to speak of the Indian, the Negro, the Mexican) hasn't a ghost of a chan...
HENRY MILLER Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed. The entire universe n...
BLAISE PASCAL Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed. The entire universe n...
BLAISE PASCAL Frigidity is desire imagined by a woman who doesn't desire the man offering himself to her. It's the...
MARGUERITE DURAS Frigidity is desire imagined by a woman who doesn't desire the man offering himself to her. It's th...
MARGUERITE DURAS It shows the kind of man he is. To allow any emotion would be unseemly for him,
RALPH FIENNES Tell a man he is brave, and you will help make him so.
THOMAS CARLYLE When he saw this place, he started crying and said this is exactly what he needed. He hasn't painted...
ANA CHAPMAN The greatest miracle that God can do today is to take an unholy man out of an unholy world and make ...
LEONARD RAVENHILL Why prove to a man he is wrong? Is that going to make him like you? Why not let him save face? He di...
DALE CARNEGIE It is what it is, it is what you make it.
JAMES DURBIN The perfection of His relation to us swallows up all our imperfections, all our defeats, all our evi...
GEORGE MACDONALD That part of Christ's nature which was profoundly human helps us to understand him and love him ...
NIKOS KAZANTZAKIS This is a big decision for him to make.
DAVE PASQUALICCHIO If you take a dog which is starving and feed him and make him prosperous, that dog will not bite you...
MARK TWAIN Graff had isolated Ender to make him struggle. To make him prove, not that he was competent, but tha...
ORSON SCOTT CARD God cannot be referred to as 'good,' 'better,' or 'best' because He is above all things. If a man sa...
ANDREW DAVIDSON I vow that if I was just an Israeli civilian and I met a Palestinian I would burn him and I would ma...
ARIEL SHARON Mr. Jackson is continuing to reach out to artists who would like to work with him on this project, w...
RAYMONE BAIN Such is the nature of compassionate being that, even when he knows that someone has made Facebook ac...
DR HITESH C SHETH

More Blaise Pascal

When we are in love we seem to ourselves quite different from what we were before.
BLAISE PASCAL We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end.
BLAISE PASCAL The sensitivity of men to small matters, and their indifference to great ones, indicates a strange i...
BLAISE PASCAL Love has reasons which reason cannot understand.
BLAISE PASCAL He no longer loves the person whom he loved ten years ago. I quite believe it. She is no longer the ...
BLAISE PASCAL I do not admire a virtue like valour when it is pushed to excess, if I do not see at the same time t...
BLAISE PASCAL The present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter.
BLAISE PASCAL On vanity: The nose of Cleopatra: if it had been shorter, the face of the earth would have changed.
BLAISE PASCAL The last act is bloody, however fine the rest of the play. They throw earth over your head and it is...
BLAISE PASCAL Justice is what is established; and thus all our established laws will necessarily be regarded as ju...
BLAISE PASCAL Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed.
BLAISE PASCAL The immortality of the soul is a matter which is of so great consequence to us and which touches us ...
BLAISE PASCAL People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by t...
BLAISE PASCAL Do you wish people to think well of you? Don't speak well of yourself.
BLAISE PASCAL Noble deeds that are concealed are most esteemed.
BLAISE PASCAL I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.
BLAISE PASCAL Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we...
BLAISE PASCAL Man's greatness lies in his power of thought.
BLAISE PASCAL If you gain, you gain all. If you lose, you lose nothing. Wager then, without hesitation, that He ex...
BLAISE PASCAL Justice without force is powerless; force without justice is tyrannical.
BLAISE PASCAL It is not good to have too much liberty. It is not good to have all one wants.
BLAISE PASCAL All man's miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone.
BLAISE PASCAL The property of power is to protect.
BLAISE PASCAL Nature is an infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.
BLAISE PASCAL Vanity is so secure in the heart of man that everyone wants to be admired: even I who write this, ...
BLAISE PASCAL Those are weaklings who know the truth and uphold it as long as it suits their purpose, and then aba...
BLAISE PASCAL If we examine our thoughts, we shall find them always occupied with the past and the future.
BLAISE PASCAL Man is obviously made for thinking. Therein lies all his dignity and his merit; and his whole duty i...
BLAISE PASCAL Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature; but he is a thinking reed. There is no need for the whole...
BLAISE PASCAL Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true.
BLAISE PASCAL Human beings must be known to be loved; but Divine beings must be loved to be known.
BLAISE PASCAL We never live, but we hope to live; and as we are always arranging to be happy, it must be that we n...
BLAISE PASCAL Between us and heaven or hell there is only life, which is the frailest thing in the world.
BLAISE PASCAL I have made this letter a rather long one, only because I didn't have the leisure to make it shorter...
BLAISE PASCAL If I had more time I would write a shorter letter.
BLAISE PASCAL The last thing we decide in writing a book is what to put first.
BLAISE PASCAL The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what to put first.
BLAISE PASCAL It is not good to be too free. It is not good to have everything one wants.
BLAISE PASCAL How I hate these follies of not believing in the Eucharist, &c.! If the Gospel be true, if Jesus...
BLAISE PASCAL Il n'est pas certain que tout soit incertain.
(Translation: It is not certain that everything i...
BLAISE PASCAL If we let ourselves believe that man began with divine grace, that he forfeited this by sin, and tha...
BLAISE PASCAL The charm of fame is so great that we like every object to which it is attached, even death.
BLAISE PASCAL The pagans do not know God, and love only the earth. The Jews know the true God, and love only the ...
BLAISE PASCAL Words differently arranged have a different meaning, and meanings differently arranged have a differ...
BLAISE PASCAL I would prefer an intelligent hell to a stupid paradise.
BLAISE PASCAL People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what ...
BLAISE PASCAL The heart has its reasons which reason knows not.
BLAISE PASCAL Nothing is so intolerable to man as being fully at rest, without a passion, without business, withou...
BLAISE PASCAL However vast a man's spiritual resources, he is capable of but one great passion.
BLAISE PASCAL We must learn our limits. We are all something but none of us are everything.
BLAISE PASCAL To find recreation in amusement is not happiness.
BLAISE PASCAL To have no time for philosophy is to be a true philosopher.
BLAISE PASCAL The origins of disputes between philosophers is, that one class of them have undertaken to raise man...
BLAISE PASCAL People are usually more convinced by reasons they discovered themselves than by those found out by o...
BLAISE PASCAL We like security: we like the pope to be infallible in matters of faith, and grave doctors to be so ...
BLAISE PASCAL There are only three types of people; those who have found God and serve him; those who have not fou...
BLAISE PASCAL The more intelligent one is, the more men of originality one finds. Ordinary people find no differen...
BLAISE PASCAL Anyone who considers himself in this way will be seized with terror and, discovering that the mass n...
BLAISE PASCAL Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed. The entire universe n...
BLAISE PASCAL What a chimera then is man. What a novelty! What a monster, what a chaos, what a contradiction, what...
BLAISE PASCAL We only consult the ear because the heart is wanting.
BLAISE PASCAL Law, without force, is impotent.
BLAISE PASCAL Beauty is a harmonious relation between something in our nature and the quality of the object which ...
BLAISE PASCAL Man finds nothing so intolerable as to be in a state of complete rest, without passions, without occ...
BLAISE PASCAL On the occasions when I have pondered over men's various activities, the dangers and worries they ar...
BLAISE PASCAL Men never do evil so fully and cheerfully as when we do it out of conscience.
BLAISE PASCAL We are only falsehood, duplicity, contradiction; we both conceal and disguise ourselves from ourselv...
BLAISE PASCAL The war existing between the senses and reason.
BLAISE PASCAL Jesus is the God whom we can approach without pride and before whom we can humble ourselves without ...
BLAISE PASCAL The highest order of mind is accused of folly, as well as the lowest. Nothing is thoroughly approved...
BLAISE PASCAL Imagination disposes of everything; it creates beauty, justice, and happiness, which is everything i...
BLAISE PASCAL The whole visible world is only an imperceptible atom in the ample bosom of nature. No idea approach...
BLAISE PASCAL One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of lif...
BLAISE PASCAL Desire and force between them are responsible for all our actions; desire causes our voluntary acts,...
BLAISE PASCAL We like to be deceived.
BLAISE PASCAL The charm of fame is so great that we like every object to which it is attached, even death.
BLAISE PASCAL Even those who write against fame wish for the fame of having written well, and those who read their...
BLAISE PASCAL Faith is different from proof; the latter is human, the former is a Gift from God.
BLAISE PASCAL Faith embraces many truths which seem to contradict each other.
BLAISE PASCAL Faith certainly tells us what the senses do not, but not the contrary of what they see; it is above,...
BLAISE PASCAL It is the heart which perceives God and not the reason. That is what faith is: God perceived by the ...
BLAISE PASCAL In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who d...
BLAISE PASCAL Two things control men's nature, instinct and experience.
BLAISE PASCAL The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing: we know this in countless ways.
BLAISE PASCAL Habit is the second nature which destroys the first.
BLAISE PASCAL Habit is a second nature that destroys the first. But what is nature? Why is habit not natural? I am...
BLAISE PASCAL If you would have people speak well of you, then do not speak well of yourself.
BLAISE PASCAL Evil is easy, and has infinite forms.
BLAISE PASCAL I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being unable to sit still and quiet in ...
BLAISE PASCAL Earnestness is enthusiasm tempered by reason.
BLAISE PASCAL The struggle alone pleases us, not the victory.
BLAISE PASCAL I maintain that, if everyone knew what others said about him, there would not be four friends in the...
BLAISE PASCAL If all men knew what each said of the other, there would not be four friends in the world.
BLAISE PASCAL Ugly deeds are most estimable when hidden.
BLAISE PASCAL If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager then without hesitation, that He exi...
BLAISE PASCAL He who does not know his way to the sea should take a river for his guide.
BLAISE PASCAL It is superstitious to put one's hopes in formalities, but arrogant to refuse to submit to them.
BLAISE PASCAL Nothing is as approved as mediocrity, the majority has established it and it fixes it fangs on whate...
BLAISE PASCAL It is right that what is just should be obeyed. It is necessary that what is strongest should be obe...
BLAISE PASCAL To go beyond the bounds of moderation is to outrage humanity.
BLAISE PASCAL I have made this letter longer, because I have not had the time to make it shorter.
BLAISE PASCAL The gospel to me is simply irresistible.
BLAISE PASCAL Animals do not admire each other. A horse does not admire its companion.
BLAISE PASCAL Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.
BLAISE PASCAL Nothing gives rest but the sincere search for truth.
BLAISE PASCAL Our nature consist in motion; complete rest is death.
BLAISE PASCAL There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who think they are sinners and the sinners who think ...
BLAISE PASCAL The only shame is to have none
BLAISE PASCAL It is the fight alone that pleases us, not the victory.
BLAISE PASCAL The stream is always purer at its source. [Fr., Les choses valent toujours mieux dans leur source....
BLAISE PASCAL The vanity of the sciences. Physical science will not console me for the ignorance of morality in th...
BLAISE PASCAL Those who do not hate their own selfishness and regard themselves as more important than the rest of...
BLAISE PASCAL It is in vain, 0 men, that you seek within yourselves the cure for your miseries. All your insight o...
BLAISE PASCAL All man's miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone.
BLAISE PASCAL If all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends in the world.
BLAISE PASCAL Men never do evil so fully and so happily as when they do it for conscience's sake.
BLAISE PASCAL What use is it to us to hear it said of a man that he has thrown off the yoke, that he does not beli...
BLAISE PASCAL I have made this letter longer than usual, because I lack the time to make it short.
BLAISE PASCAL If the nose of Cleopatra had been shorter, the whole face of the earth would have been changed.
BLAISE PASCAL Man's greatness lies in his power of thought.
BLAISE PASCAL You always admire what you really don't understand.
BLAISE PASCAL It is false zeal to keep truth while wounding charity
BLAISE PASCAL Men of quality are not threatened by women of equality
BLAISE PASCAL Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever i...
BLAISE PASCAL Nature is an infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere
BLAISE PASCAL The power of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special efforts, but by his ordinary doing
BLAISE PASCAL The heart has reasons that reason cannot know.
BLAISE PASCAL Eloquence is a painting of the thoughts.
BLAISE PASCAL Do you wish people to think well of you? Don't speak well of yourself.
BLAISE PASCAL The eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills me with dread.
BLAISE PASCAL Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
BLAISE PASCAL Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction.
BLAISE PASCAL I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being unable to sit still in a room.
BLAISE PASCAL Our notion of symmetry is derived from the human face. Hence, we demand symmetry horizontally and in...
BLAISE PASCAL Curiosity is only vanity. We usually only want to know something so that we can talk about it.
BLAISE PASCAL Vanity of science. Knowledge of physical science will not console me for ignorance of morality in ti...
BLAISE PASCAL Little things console us because little things afflict us.
BLAISE PASCAL The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble.
BLAISE PASCAL You always admire what you really don't understand.
BLAISE PASCAL Justice and truth are too such subtle points that our tools are too blunt to touch them accurately.
BLAISE PASCAL The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.
BLAISE PASCAL Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gambl...
BLAISE PASCAL Small minds are concerned with the extraordinary, great minds with the ordinary.
BLAISE PASCAL Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer the same persons. Neither the offend...
BLAISE PASCAL All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.
BLAISE PASCAL In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who d...
BLAISE PASCAL Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere.
BLAISE PASCAL Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side...
BLAISE PASCAL Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much.
BLAISE PASCAL In each action we must look beyond the action at our past, present, and future state, and at others ...
BLAISE PASCAL I lay it down as a fact that if all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friend...
BLAISE PASCAL Atheism shows strength of mind, but only to a certain degree.
BLAISE PASCAL We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put something before us to prevent us seeing it.
BLAISE PASCAL If man made himself the first object of study, he would see how incapable he is of going further. Ho...
BLAISE PASCAL Through space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an atom; through thought I comprehend...
BLAISE PASCAL When we see a natural style, we are astonished and charmed; for we expected to see an author, and we...
BLAISE PASCAL Words differently arranged have a different meaning, and meanings differently arranged have differen...
BLAISE PASCAL Nothing is as approved as mediocrity, the majority has established it and it fixes its fangs on what...
BLAISE PASCAL Rivers are roads that move and carry us whither we wish to go. [Fr., Les rivieres sont des chemins...
BLAISE PASCAL He who does not know his way to the sea should take a river for his guide. [Fr., Les rivieres son...
BLAISE PASCAL Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed. The entire universe n...
BLAISE PASCAL I have only made this letter rather long because I have not had time to make it shorter. [Fr., Je...
BLAISE PASCAL Imagination disposes of everything; it creates beauty, justice, and happiness, which are everything ...
BLAISE PASCAL If our condition were truly happy, we would not seek diversion from it in order to make ourselves ha...
BLAISE PASCAL We view things not only from different sides, but with different eyes; we have no wish to find them ...
BLAISE PASCAL To go beyond the bounds of moderation is to outrage humanity.
BLAISE PASCAL I have made this [letter] longer, because I have not had the time to make it shorter.
BLAISE PASCAL A jester, a bad character. [Fr., Diseur de bon mots, mauvais caractere.]
BLAISE PASCAL It is not only old and early impressions that deceive us; the charms of novelty have the same power.
BLAISE PASCAL We think very little of time present; we anticipate the future, as being too slow, and with a view t...
BLAISE PASCAL By a peculiar prerogative, not only each individual is making daily advances in the sciences, and ma...
BLAISE PASCAL For after all what is man in nature? A nothing in relation to infinity, all in relation to nothing, ...
BLAISE PASCAL Man is to himself the most wonderful object in nature; for he cannot conceive what the body is, stil...
BLAISE PASCAL We know truth, not only by reason, but also by the heart.
BLAISE PASCAL We are generally the better persuaded by the reasons we discover ourselves than by those given to us...
BLAISE PASCAL The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of.
BLAISE PASCAL Since we cannot know all that there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about e...
BLAISE PASCAL People are usually more convinced by reasons they discovered themselves than by those found by other...
BLAISE PASCAL One must know oneself, if this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of lif...
BLAISE PASCAL Man is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness from which he emerges and the infinity in which h...
BLAISE PASCAL Few men speak humbly of humility, chastely of chastity, skeptically of skepticism.
BLAISE PASCAL Force rules the world, and not opinion; but opinion is that which makes use of force.
BLAISE PASCAL Curiosity is only vanity. Most frequently we wish not to know, but to talk. We would not take a sea ...
BLAISE PASCAL Vanity is so secure in the heart of man that everyone wants to be admired : even I who write this, a...
BLAISE PASCAL The multitude which is not brought to act as a unity, is confusion. That unity which has not its ori...
BLAISE PASCAL Any unity which doesn't have its origin in the multitudes is tyranny.
BLAISE PASCAL Clarity of mind means clarity of passion, too; this is why a great and clear mind loves ardently and...
BLAISE PASCAL What a strange vanity painting is; it attracts admiration by resembling the original, we do not admi...
BLAISE PASCAL Thus so wretched is man that he would weary even without any cause for weariness... and so frivolous...
BLAISE PASCAL The present is never our goal: the past and present are our means: the future alone is our goal. Thu...
BLAISE PASCAL A mere trifle consoles us for a mere trifle distresses us.
BLAISE PASCAL Noble deeds that are concealed are most esteemed
BLAISE PASCAL Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction
BLAISE PASCAL The consciousness of the falsity of present pleasures, and the ignorance of the vanity of absent ple...
BLAISE PASCAL The weather and my mood have little connection. I have my foggy and my fine days within me; my prosp...
BLAISE PASCAL Therefore, those to whom God has imparted religion by intuition are very fortunate and justly convin...
BLAISE PASCAL It is good to be tired and wearied by the futile search after the true good, that we may stretch out...
BLAISE PASCAL The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.
BLAISE PASCAL We are usually convinced more easily by reasons we have found ourselves than by reasons which have o...
BLAISE PASCAL Not only do we not know God except through Jesus Christ; We do not even know ourselves except throug...
BLAISE PASCAL