Quotes by Blaise Pascal
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We sometimes learn more from the sight of evil than from an example of good; and it is well to accustom ourselves to profit by the evil which is so common, while that which is good is so rare.

What a strange vanity painting is; it attracts admiration by resembling the original, we do not admire.

He no longer loves the person whom he loved ten years ago. I quite believe it. She is no longer the same, nor is he. He was young, and she also; she is quite different. He would perhaps love her yet, if she were what she was then.

A man does not show his greatness by being at one extremity, but rather by touching both at once.

I should not be a Christian but for the miracles.

Curiosity is only vanity. Most frequently we wish not to know, but to talk. We would not take a sea voyage for the sole pleasure of seeing without hope of ever telling.

The present is never the mark of our designs. We use both past and present as our means and instruments, but the future only as our object and aim.

Love has no age as it is always renewing itself.

What reason have atheists for saying that we cannot rise again? That what has never been, should be, or that what has been, should be again? Is it more difficult to come into being than to return to it.

I can approve of those only who seek in tears for happiness.

When a soldier complains of his hard life (or a labourer, etc.) try giving him nothing to do.

The authority of reason is far more imperious than that of a master; for he who disobeys the one is unhappy, but he who disobeys the other is a fool.

I would prefer an intelligent hell to a stupid paradise.

Don't try to add more years to your life. Better add more life to your years.

Kind words do not cost much. They never blister the tongue or lips. They make other people good-natured. They also produce their own image on men's souls, and a beautiful image it is.

All sorrow has its root in man's inability to sit quiet in a room by himself.

I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter.

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

If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.

The heart has reasons, which reason does not know.

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

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

Between us and heaven or hell there is only life, which is the frailest thing in the world.

A trifle consoles us, for a trifle distresses us.

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

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.

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

Our nature consists in motion; complete rest is death.

The only shame is to have none.

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

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

It is good to be tired and wearied by the futile search after the true good, that we may stretch out our arms to the Redeemer.

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

All human evil comes from a single cause, man's inability to sit still in a room.

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

Little things console us because little things afflict us.

The struggle alone pleases us, not the victory.

You always admire what you really don't understand.

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

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

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.

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

We are only falsehood, duplicity, contradiction; we both conceal and disguise ourselves from ourselves.

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

Imagination disposes of everything; it creates beauty, justice, and happiness, which are everything in this world.

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

Earnestness is enthusiasm tempered by reason.

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

If all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends in the world.

Human beings must be known to be loved; but Divine beings must be loved to be known.

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.

I maintain that, if everyone knew what others said about him, there would not be four friends in the world.

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?

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

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

Faith embraces many truths which seem to contradict each other.

Vanity is but the surface.

Thus so wretched is man that he would weary even without any cause for weariness... and so frivolous is he that, though full of a thousand reasons for weariness, the least thing, such as playing billiards or hitting a ball, is sufficient enough to amuse him.

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

Words differently arranged have a different meaning, and meanings differently arranged have different effects.

The supreme function of reason is to show man that some things are beyond reason.

All of our reasoning ends in surrender to feeling.

We only consult the ear because the heart is wanting.

Evil is easily discovered; there is an infinite variety.

All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.

Small minds are concerned with the extraordinary, great minds with the ordinary.

Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists.

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

Noble deeds that are concealed are most esteemed.

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

When we are in love we seem to ourselves quite different from what we were before.

Eloquence is a painting of the thoughts.

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

Law, without force, is impotent.

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

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.

The strength of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts.

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

Nothing gives rest but the sincere search for truth.

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

In each action we must look beyond the action at our past, present, and future state, and at others whom it affects, and see the relations of all those things. And then we shall be very cautious.

Faith is different from proof; the latter is human, the former is a Gift from God.

Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him?

There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who think they are sinners and the sinners who think they are righteous.