Background Image
...
Anyone Who Found The Secret Of Rejoicing When Things Go Well Without Being Annoyed When They Go Badly Would Have Found The Point.
-Blaise Pascal
...
Please Wait....
Translating....

Anyone Who Found The

Blaise Pascal
...
Anyone Who Found The Secret Of Rejoicing When Things Go Well Without Being Annoyed When They Go Badly Would Have Found The Point.

Understanding the Quote: "anyone who found the secret of rejoicing when things go well without..."

This quote by Blaise Pascal reflects deeply on the theme of annoyed. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Annoyed, Secret, Found, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Blaise Pascal interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Blaise Pascal

Blaise Pascal is celebrated for insightful thoughts on annoyed and secret. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

Views: 4626
Topic
Annoyed
Secret
Found
More From Blaise Pascal
Earnestness Is Enthusiasm Tempered By Reason.
Integrity
Enthusiasm
Reason
The Only Thing Which Consoles For Our Miseries Is Diversion, And Yet This Is The Greatest Of Our Miseries. For It Is This Which Principally Hinders Us From Reflecting Upon Ourselves And Which Makes Us Imperceptibly Ruin Ourselves.
Sadness
Reflecting Upon
Ruins
Reason's Last Step Is To Acknowledge That There Are Infinitely Many Things Beyond It.
Lasts
Steps
Reason
Men Despise Religion. They Hate It And Are Afraid It May Be True. The Cure For This Is First To Show That Religion Is Not Contrary To Reason, But Worthy Of Reverence And Respect. Next Make It Attractive, Make Good Men Wish It Were True And Then Show That It Is.
Hate
Men
Good Man
To Find Recreation In Amusement Is Not Happiness.
Happiness
Greatest Love
Amusement
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.
Sight
Evil
Example
Seeing Too Much To Deny And Too Little To Be Sure, I Am In A State To Be Pitied.
Littles
Too Much
Deny
Mediocrity Makes The Most Of Its Native Possessions.
Mediocrity
Possession
Native
No Animal Admires Another Animal.
Animal
Pet
Admire
Must We Kill To Prevent There Being Any Wicked? This Is To Make Both Parties Wicked Instead Of One.
Party
Wicked
Killing
Man Is But A Reed, The Most Feeble Thing In Nature, But He Is A Thinking Reed.
Inspiring
Nature
Men
The World Is Satisfied With Words. Few Appreciate The Things Beneath. [fr., Le Monde Se Paye De Paroles; Peu Approfondissement Les Choses.]
Appreciate
World
Parole
We Like To Be Deceived.
Deception
Deceived
To Scorn Philosophy Is Truly To Philosophize.
Philosophy
Scorn
The Whole Title By Which You Possess Your Property, Is Not A Title Of Nature But Of A Human Institution.
Titles
Institutions
Humans
Plurality Which Is Not Reduced To Unity Is Confusion; Unity Which Does Not Depend On Plurality Is Tyranny.
Confusion
Unity
Doe
Our Achievements Of Today Are But The Sum Total Of Our Thoughts Of Yesterday.
Yesterday
Achievement
Today
When I Have Occasionally Set Myself To Consider The Different Distractions Of Men, The Pains And Perils To Which They Expose Themselves I Have Discovered That All The Unhappiness Of Men Arises From One Single Fact, That They Cannot Stay Quietly In Their Own Chamber.
Pain
Men
Facts
We Must Know Where To Doubt, Where To Feel Certain, Where To Submit. He Who Does Not Do So, Understands Not The Force Of Reason.
Doubt
Doe
Reason
Now, If The Passions Had No Hold On Us, A Week And A Hundred Years Would Amount To The Same.
Time
Passion
Years
The War Existing Between The Senses And Reason.
War
Conflict
Reason
Making Fun Of Philosophy Is Really Philosophising.
Art
Fun
Philosophy
Not The Zeal Alone Of Those Who Seek Him Proves God, But The Blindness Of Those Who Seek Him Not.
Blindness
Prove
Zeal
Two Similar Faces, Neither Of Which Alone Causes Laughter, Use Laughter When They Are Together, By Their Resemblance.
Laughter
Two
Together
Those Who Make Antitheses By Forcing The Sense Are Like Men Who Make False Windows For The Sake Of Symmetry. Their Rule Is Not To Speak Justly, But To Make Accurate Figures.
Men
Style
Sake
Since We Cannot Know All That There Is To Be Known About Anything, We Ought To Know A Little About Everything.
Knowledge
Science
Littles
Bless Yourself With Holy Water, Have Masses Said, And So On; By A Simple And Natural Process This Will Make You Believe, And Will Dull You - Will Quiet Your Proudly Critical Intellect.
Believe
Simple
Water
We Must Kill Them In War, Just Because They Live Beyond The River. If They Lived On This Side, We Would Be Called Murderers.
Memorial Day
War
Rivers
Nothing Is So Intolerable To Man As Being Fully At Rest, Without Passion, Without Business, Without Entertainment, Without Care. It Is Then That He Recognizes That He Is Empty, Insufficient, Dependent, Ineffectual. From The Depths Of His Soul Now Comes At Once Boredom, Gloom, Sorrow, Chagrin, Resentment And Despair.
Passion
Men
Boredom
It's Not Those Who Write The Laws That Have The Greatest Impact On Society. It's Those Who Write The Songs.
Song
Writing
Impact
If Ignorance Were Bliss, He'd Be A Blister
Ignorance
Bliss
Blisters
When We Would Show Any One That He Is Mistaken, Our Best Course Is To Observe On What Side He Considers The Subject,--for His View Of If Is Generally Right On This Side,--and Admit To Him That He Is Right So Far. He Will Be Satisfied With This Acknowledgment, That He Was Not Wrong In His Judgment, But Only Inadvertent In Not Looking At The Whole Case.
Views
Sides
Argument
The Property Of Power Is To Protect.
Power
Protect
Property
All Men Seek Happiness. There Are No Exceptions.... This Is The Motive Of Every Act Of Every Man, Including Those Who Go And Hang Themselves.
Men
Motive
Exception
It Is Not Only Old And Early Impressions That Deceive Us; The Charms Of Novelty Have The Same Power.
Deception
Novelty
Deceiving
Who Knows If This Other Half Of Life Where We Think We're Awake Is Not Another Sleep A Little Different From The First.
Sleep
Thinking
Different
We View Things Not Only From Different Sides, But With Different Eyes; We Have No Wish To Find Them Alike.
Eye
Views
Two Sides
Imagination Cannot Make Fools Wise, But It Makes Them Happy, As Against Reason, Which Only Makes Its Friends Wretched: One Covers Them With Glory, The Other With Shame.
Wise
Imagination
Fool
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?
Men
Firsts
Study
Each One Is All In All To Himself; For Being Dead, All Is Dead To Him.
Self
To Deny, To Believe, And To Doubt Well, Are To A Man What The Race Is To A Horse.
Horse
Believe
Math
The Heart Has Its Reasons, Which Reason Does Not Know. We Feel It In A Thousand Things. It Is The Heart Which Feels God, And Not Reason. This, Then, Is Perfect Faith: God Felt In The Heart.
Life
Heart
Perfect
Don't Try To Add More Years To Your Life. Better Add More Life To Your Years.
Death
Suicide
Years
If You Want Others To Have A Good Opinion Of You, Say Nothing.
Want
Opinion
Ifs
God Has Given Us Evidence Sufficiently Clear To Convince Those With An Open Heart And Mind.
Heart
Mind
Given
What A Chimaera Then Is Man, What A Novelty, What A Monster, What Chaos, What A Subject Of Contradiction, What A Prodigy! Judge Of All Things, Yet An Imbecile Earthworm; Depository Of Truth, Yet A Sewer Of Uncertainty And Error; Pride And Refuse Of The Universe. Who Shall Resolve This Tangle?
Truth
Pride
Men
We Must Make Good People Wish That The Christian Faith Were True, And Then Show That It Is.
Christian
People
Wish
Things Have Different Qualities, And The Soul Different Inclinations; For Nothing Is Simple Which Is Presented To The Soul, And The Soul Never Presents Itself Simply To Any Object. Hence It Comes That We Weep And Laugh At The Same Thing.
Simple
Laughing
Soul
Do Little Things As If They Were Great, Because Of The Majesty Of The Lord Jesus Christ Who Dwells In Thee.
Jesus
Deeds
Littles
Let Us Imagine A Number Of Men In Chains And All Condemned To Death, Where Some Are Killed Each Day In The Sight Of The Others, And Those Who Remain See Their Own Fate In That Of Their Fellows And Wait Their Turn, Looking At Each Other Sorrowfully And Without Hope. It Is An Image Of The Condition Of Man.
Death
Fate
Men
Those We Call The Ancients Were Really New In Everything.
If We Regulate Our Conduct According To Our Own Convictions, We May Safely Disregard The Praise Or Censure Of Others.
May
Praise
Conviction
Everything That Is Incomprehensible Does Not, However, Cease To Exist.
Doe
Existence
Cease
Faith Embraces Many Truths Which Seem To Contradict Each Other.
Faith
Embrace
Seems
Those Are Weaklings Who Know The Truth And Uphold It As Long As It Suits Their Purpose, And Then Abandon It.
Truth
Long
Purpose
No One Is Discontented At Not Being A King Except A Discrowned King ... Unhappiness Almost Invariably Indicates The Existence Of A Road Not Taken, A Talent Undeveloped, A Self Not Recognized.
Kings
Taken
Self
Happiness Can Be Found Neither In Ourselves Nor In External Things, But In God And In Ourselves As United To Him.
Found
United
What A Strange Vanity Painting Is; It Attracts Admiration By Resembling The Original, We Do Not Admire.
Pain
Vanity
Strange
Le Silence E Ternel De Ces Espaces Infinis M'effraie. The Eternal Silence Of These Infinite Spaces Fills Me With Dread.
Space
Silence
Infinite
So We Can Only Know God Well By Knowing Our Iniquities. Therefore Those Who Have Known God, Without Knowing Their Wretchedness, Have Not Glorified Him, But Have Glorified Themselves.
Knowing
Sin
Wells
You Gave Me Health That I Might Serve You; And So Often I Failed To Use My Good Health In Your Service. Now You Send Me Sickness In Order To Correct Me Grant That, Having Ignored The Things Of Spirit When My Body Was Vigorous, I May Now Enjoy Spiritual Sweetness While My Body Groans With Pain.
Spiritual
Pain
Order
This Is What I See, And What Troubles Me. I Look On All Sides, And Everywhere I See Nothing But Obscurity. Nature Offers Me Nothing That Is Not A Matter Of Doubt And Disquiet.
Doubt
Obscurity
Looks
The Eternal Silence Of These Infinite Spaces Frightens Me.
Science
Space
Silence
If He Exalts Himself, I Humble Him. If He Humbles Himself, I Exalt Him. And I Go On Contradicting Him Until He Understands That He Is A Monster That Passes All Understanding.
Humble
Understanding
Monsters
Custom Creates The Whole Of Equity, For The Simple Reason That It Is Accepted.
Simple
Reason
Accepted
Man's Greatness Is Great In That He Knows Himself Wretched. A Tree Does Not Know Itself Wretched. It Is Then Being Wretched To Know Oneself Wretched; But It Is Being Great To Know That One Is Wretched.
Greatness
Men
Tree
He Who Does Not Know His Way To The Sea Should Take A River For His Guide.
Sea
Rivers
Doe
I Have Spent Much Time In The Study Of The Abstract Sciences; But The Paucity Of Persons With Whom You Can Communicate On Such Subjects Disgusted Me With Them. When I Began To Study Man, I Saw That These Abstract Sciences Are Not Suited To Him, And That In Diving Into Them, I Wandered Farther From My Real Object Than Those Who Knew Them Not, And I Forgave Them For Not Having Attended To These Things. I Expected Then, However, That I Should Find Some Companions In The Study Of Man, Since It Was So Specifically A Duty. I Was In Error. There Are Fewer Students Of Man Than Of Geometry.
Real
Communication
Science
All Man's Troubles Come From Not Knowing How To Sit Still In One Room.
Blessing
Men
Knowing
If God Exists, Not Seeking God Must Be The Gravest Error Imaginable. If One Decides To Sincerely Seek For God And Doesn't Find God, The Lost Effort Is Negligible In Comparison To What Is At Risk In Not Seeking God In The First Place.
Errors
Effort
Risk
[on Vanity:] The Nose Of Cleopatra: If It Had Been Shorter, The Face Of The Earth Would Have Changed.
Beauty
Vanity
Noses
Man Is Obviously Made For Thinking. Therein Lies All His Dignity And His Merit; And His Whole Duty Is To Think As He Ought.
Lying
Men
Thinking
Human Beings Must Be Known To Be Loved; But Divine Beings Must Be Loved To Be Known.
Love
Native American
Religion
People Almost Invariably Arrive At Their Beliefs Not On The Basis Of Proof But On The Basis Of What They Find Attractive.
People
Belief
Attractive
All Men Are Almost Led To Believe Not Of Proof, But By Attraction. This Way Is Base, Ignoble, And Irrelevant; Every One Therefore Disavows It. Each One Professes To Believe And Even To Love Nothing But What He Knows To Be Worthy Of Belief And Love.
Believe
Men
And Love
Our Achievements Of Today Are But The Sum Total Of Our Thoughts Of Yesterday. You Are Today Where The Thoughts Of Yesterday Have Brought You And You Will Be Tomorrow Where The Thoughts Of Today Take You.
Wise
Yesterday
Achievement
All Our Life Passes In This Way: We Seek Rest By Struggling Against Certain Obstacles, And Once They Are Overcome, Rest Proves Intolerable Because Of The Boredom It Produces.
Struggle
Blessing
Boredom
It Is The Conduct Of God, Who Disposes All Things Kindly, To Put Religion Into The Mind By Reason, And Into The Heart By Grace.
Heart
Grace
Mind
Let Each Of Us Examine His Thoughts; He Will Find Them Wholly Concerned With The Past Or The Future. We Almost Never Think Of The Present, And If We Do Think Of It, It Is Only To See What Light Is Throws On Our Plans For The Future. The Present Is Never Our End. The Past And The Present Are Our Means, The Future Alone Our End. Thus We Never Actually Live, But Hope To Live, And Since We Are Always Planning How To Be Happy, It Is Inevitable That We Should Never Be So.
Mean
Past
Thinking
Too Much Pleasure Disagrees With Us. Too Many Concords Are Annoying In Music; Too Many Benefits Irritate Us; We Wish To Have The Wherewithal To Overpay Our Debts.
Wish
Debt
Benefits
Who Can Doubt That We Exist Only To Love? Disguise It, In Fact, As We Will, We Love Without Intermission... We Live Not A Moment Exempt From Its Influence.
Love
Doubt
Facts
Truth Is So Obscure In These Times, And Falsehood So Established, That, Unless We Love The Truth, We Cannot Know It.
Love
Religion
Truth Is
Man Is So Made That If He Is Told Often Enough That He Is A Fool He Believes It.
Believe
Men
Fool
We Are So Presumptuous That We Wish To Be Known To All The World, Even To Those Who Come After Us; And We Are So Vain That The Esteem Of Five Or Six Persons Immediately Around Us Is Enough To Amuse And Satisfy Us.
Vanity
Wish
World
To Find Recreation In Amusements Is Not Happiness; For This Joy Springs From Alien And Extrinsic Sources, And Is Therefore Dependent Upon And Subject To Interruption By A Thousand Accidents, Which May Minister Inevitable Affliction.
Spring
Joy
May
By A Peculiar Prerogative, Not Only Each Individual Is Making Daily Advances In The Sciences, And May Make Advances In Morality (which Is The Science, By Way Of Eminence, Of Living Well And Being Happy), But All Mankind Together Is Making A Continual Progress In Proportion As The Universe Grows Older. So That The Whole Human Race, During The Course Of So Many Ages, May Be Considered As One Man Who Never Ceases To Live And Learn.
Men
Race
Progress
Between Us, And Hell Or Heaven, There Is Only Life Between The Two, Which Is The Most Fragile Thing In The World. Variant: Between Us And Heaven Or Hell There Is Only Life, Which Is The Frailest Thing In The World.
Life
Two
Heaven
It Is Not Certain That Everything Is Uncertain.
Math
Intelligence
Uncertain
There Are People Who Lie Simply For The Sake Of Lying.
Lying
People
People Who Lie
Reverend Fathers, My Letters Did Not Usually Follow Each Other At Such Close Intervals, Nor Were They So Long.... This One Would Not Be So Long Had I But The Leisure To Make It Shorter.
Father
Math
Long
We See Neither Justice Nor Injustice Which Does Not Change Its Nature With Change In Climate. Three Degrees Of Latitude Reverse All Jurisprudence; A Meridian Decides The Truth.
Justice
Climate
Degrees
When We Are In Love We Seem To Ourselves Quite Different From What We Were Before.
Love
Inspiring
Inspirational Life
An Advocate Who Has Been Well Paid In Advance Will Find The Cause He Is Pleading All The More Just.
Causes
Pleading
Wells
If There Is A God, He Is Infinitely Incomprehensible, Since, Having, Neither Parts Nor Limits, He Has No Affinity To Us. We Are Then Incapable Of Knowing Either What He Is Or If He Is. [so] You Must Wager. Let Us Weigh The Gain And The Loss In Wagering That God Is. Let Us Estimate These Two Chances. If You Gain, You Gain All; If You Lose, You Lose Nothing. Wager Then Without Hesitation That He Is.
Atheist
Loss
Knowing
The Imagination Disposes Of Everything. It Creates Beauty, Justice, And Happiness, Which Are The Whole Of The World.
Inspirational
Happiness
Beauty
It Is Impossible On Reasonable Grounds To Disbelieve Miracles.
Miracle
Impossible
Reasonable
We Are Usually Convinced More Easily By Reasons We Have Found Ourselves Than By Those Which Have Occurred To Others.
Freedom
Democracy
Reason
That We Must Love One God Only Is A Thing So Evident That It Does Not Require Miracles To Prove It.
Miracle
Doe
Prove It
Silence. All Human Unhappiness Comes From Not Knowing How To Stay Quietly In A Room.
Happiness
Knowing
Silence
What Matters It That Man Should Have A Little More Knowledge Of The Universe? If He Has It, He Gets Little Higher. Is He Not Always Infinitely Removed From The End, And Is Not The Duration Of Our Life Equally Removed From Eternity, Even If It Lasts Ten Years Longer?
Knowledge
Men
What Matters
The God Of Christians Is A God Of Love And Comfort, A God Who Fills The Soul And Heart Of Those Whom He Possesses, A God Who Makes Them Conscious Of Their Inward Wretchedness, And His Infinite Mercy; Who Unites Himself To Their Inmost Soul, Who Fills It With Humility And Joy, With Confidence And Love, Who Renders Them Incapable Of Any Other End Than Himself.
Christian
Heart
Humility
Let No One Say That I Have Said Nothing New... The Arrangement Of The Subject Is New. When We Play Tennis, We Both Play With The Same Ball, But One Of Us Places It Better.
Math
Play
Tennis
Let Man Then Contemplate The Whole Of Nature In Her Full And Grand Majesty... No Idea Approaches It. We May Enlarge Our Conceptions Beyond All Imaginable Space; We Only Produce Atoms In Comparison With The Reality Of Things. It Is An Infinite Sphere, The Center Of Which Is Everywhere, The Circumference Nowhere.
Nature
Reality
Men
What Part Of Us Feels Pleasure? Is It Our Hand, Our Arm, Our Flesh, Or Our Blood? It Must Obviously Be Something Immaterial.
Blood
Hands
Flesh
Description Of Man: Dependence, Longing For Independence, Need.
Men
Independence
Needs
The Heart Has Its Order, The Mind Has Its Own, Which Uses Principles And Demonstrations. The Heart Has A Different One. We Do Not Prove That We Ought To Be Loved By Setting Out In Order The Causes Of Love; That Would Be Absurd.
Heart
Order
Mind
The Sole Cause Of Man's Unhappiness Is That He Does Not Know How To Stay Quietly In His Room.
Math
Men
Doe
Knowing God Without Knowing Our Own Wretchedness Makes For Pride. Knowing Our Own Wretchedness Without Knowing God Makes For Despair. Knowing Jesus Christ Strikes The Balance Because He Shows Us Both God And Our Own Wretchedness.
Jesus
Pride
Knowing
The Last Thing We Decide In Writing A Book Is What To Put First.
Inspirational
Book
Writing
That Dog Is Mine Said Those Poor Children; That Place In The Sun Is Mine; Such Is The Beginning And Type Of Usurpation Throughout The Earth. [fr., Ce Chien Est A Moi, Disaient Ces Pauvres Enfants; C'est La Ma Place Au Soleil. Voila Le Commencement Et L'image De L'usurpation De Toute La Terre.]
Dog
Children
Earth
Words Differently Arranged Have A Different Meaning, And Meanings Differently Arranged Have Different Effects.
Different
Effects
Different Meanings
The Christian's God Does Not Merely Consist Of A God Who Is The Author Of Mathematical Truths And The Order Of The Elements. The God Of Abraham, The God Of Isaac, The God Of Jacob, The God Of The Christians, Is A God Of Love And Consolation.
Christian
Order
Doe
Man Is Neither Angel Nor Beast.
Angel
Men
Beast
We Sail Within A Vast Sphere, Ever Drifting In Uncertainty, Driven From End To End. When We Think To Attach Ourselves To Any Pointand To Fasten To It, It Wavers And Leaves Us; And If We Follow It, It Eludes Our Grasp, Slips Past Us, And Vanishes For Ever. Nothing Stays For Us.
Knowledge
Past
Thinking
Il Y A Deux Sortes D'esprits, L'un Ge Ome Trique, Et L'autre Que L'on Peut Appeler De Finesse. Le Premier A Des Vues Lentes, Dures Et Inflexibles; Mais Le Dernier A Une Souplesse De Pense E. There Are Two Kinds Of Mind, One Mathematical, The Other What One Might Call The Intuitive. The First Takes A Slow, Firm, Inflexible View, But The Latter Has Flexibility Of Thought.
Views
Two
Mind
Without [diversion] We Would Be In A State Of Weariness, And This Weariness Would Spur Us On To Seek A More Solid Means Of Escaping From It. But Diversion Amuses Us, And Leads Us Unconsciously To Death.
Death
Sadness
Mean
If A Soldier Or Labourer Complain Of The Hardship Of His Lot, Set Him To Do Nothing.
Soldier
Complaining
Hardship
Vanity Is So Anchored In The Heart Of Man That A Soldier, A Soldier's Servant, A Cook, A Porter Brags And Wishes To Have His Admirers. Even Philosophers Wish For Them. Those Who Write Against Vanity Want To Have The Glory Of Having Written Well; And Those Who Read It Desire The Glory Of Having Read It. I Who Write This Have Perhaps This Desire, And Perhaps Those Who Will Read It.
Philosophical
Writing
Heart
The Consciousness Of The Falsity Of Present Pleasures, And The Ignorance Of The Vanity Of Absent Pleasures, Cause Inconstancy.
Ignorance
Vanity
Causes
If I Believe In God And Life After Death And You Do Not, And If There Is No God, We Both Lose When We Die. However, If There Is A God, You Still Lose And I Gain Everything.
Believe
If There Is A God
God And Life
One-half Of The Ills Of Life Come Because Men Are Unwilling To Sit Down Quietly For Thirty Minutes To Think Through All The Possible Consequences Of Their Acts.
Spiritual
Men
Thinking
Man Is To Himself The Most Wonderful Object In Nature; For He Cannot Conceive What The Body Is, Still Less What The Mind Is, And Least Of All How A Body Should Be United To A Mind. This Is The Consummation Of His Difficulties, And Yet It Is His Very Being.
Men
Mind
Body
All This Visible World Is But An Imperceptible Point In The Ample Bosom Of Nature.
Nature
World
Visible
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.
Tired
May
Arms
Mankind Suffers From Two Excesses: To Exclude Reason, And To Live By Nothing But Reason.
Two
Suffering
Excess
Without The Knowledge Of Our Wretchedness, The Knowledge Of God Creates Pride. With It, The Knowledge Of God Creates Despair. The Knowledge Of Christ Offers A Third Way, Because In Him We Find Both God And Our Wretchedness.
Hope
Pride
Despair
Anyone Who Found The Secret Of Rejoicing When Things Go Well Without Being Annoyed When They Go Badly Would Have Found The Point.
Annoyed
Secret
Found
The Mind Of The Greatest Man On Earth Is Not So Independent Of Circumstances As Not To Feel Inconvenienced By The Merest Buzzing Noise About Him; It Does Not Need The Report Of A Cannon To Disturb His Thoughts. The Creaking Of A Vane Or A Pully Is Quite Enough. Do Not Wonder That He Reasons Ill Just Now; A Fly Is Buzzing By His Ear; It Is Quite Enough To Unfit Him For Giving Good Counsel.
Independent
Men
Giving
It Is Dangerous To Explain Too Clearly To Man How Like He Is To The Animals Without Pointing Out His Greatness. It Is Also Dangerous To Make Too Much Of His Greatness Without His Vileness. It Is Still More Dangerous To Leave Him In Ignorance Of Both, But It Is Most Valuable To Represent Both To Him. Man Must Not Be Allowed To Believe That He Is Equal Either To Animals Or To Angels, Nor To Be Unaware Of Either, But He Must Know Both.
Believe
Ignorance
Angel
If Our Condition Were Truly Happy, We Would Not Need Diversion From Thinking Of It In Order To Make Ourselves Happy.
Order
Truly Happy
Diversion
It Is Dangerous To Tell The People That The Laws Are Unjust; For They Obey Them Only Because They Think Them Just. Therefore It Isnecessary To Tell Them At The Same Time That They Must Obey Them Because They Are Laws, Just As They Must Obey Superiors, Not Because They Are Just, But Because They Are Superiors. In This Way All Sedition Is Prevented.
Thinking
Law
People
Men Blaspheme What They Do Not Know.
Men
Knows
Thought Makes The Whole Dignity Of Man; Therefore Endeavor To Think Well, That Is The Only Morality.
Men
Thinking
Morality
If They [plato And Aristotle] Wrote About Politics It Was As If To Lay Down Rules For A Madhouse. And If They Pretended To Treat It As Something Really Important It Was Because They Knew That The Madmen They Were Talking To Believed Themselves To Be Kings And Emperors. They Humored These Beliefs In Order To Calm Down Their Madness With As Little Harm As Possible.
Kings
Plato
Order
How Hollow Is The Heart Of Man, And How Full Of Excrement!
Heart
Men
Hollow
The Strength Of A Man's Virtue Should Not Be Measured By His Special Exertions, But By His Habitual Acts.
Inspirational
Strength
Wisdom
Man Governs Himself More By Impulse Than Reason
Men
Reason
Impulse
Kind Words Produce Their Images On Men's Souls.
Men
Soul
Kind
Man Finds Nothing So Intolerable As To Be In A State Of Complete Rest, Without Passions, Without Occupation, Without Diversion, Without Effort. Then He Feels His Nullity, Loneliness, Inadequacy, Dependence, Helplessness, Emptiness.
Loneliness
Passion
Men
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.
Divine Justice
Spirit
Infinite
Those Who Profess Contempt For Men, And Put Them On A Level With Beasts, Yet Wish To Be Admired And Believed By Men, And Contradict Themselves By Their Own Feelings--their Nature, Which Is Stronger Than All, Convincing Them Of The Greatness Of Man More Forcibly Than Reason Convinces Them Of His Baseness.
Greatness
Men
Feelings
There Are Two Excesses: To Exclude Reason, To Admit Nothing But Reason. The Supreme Achievement Of Reason Is To Realise That There Is A Limit To Reason. Reason's Last Step Is The Recognition That There Are An Infinite Number Of Things Which Are Beyond It. It Is Merely Feeble If It Does Not Go As Far As To Realise That.
Two
Numbers
Achievement
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.
Strong
Power
Men
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.
Men
Desire
Strange
The Stream Is Always Purer At Its Source. [fr., Les Choses Valent Toujours Mieux Dans Leur Source.]
Purity
Source
Streams
Unless We Love The Truth We Cannot Know It.
Truth And Falsehood
Knows
Falsehood
All The Trouble In The World Is Due To The Fact That Man Cannot Sit Still In A Room.
Men
World
Rooms
Imagination Is The Deceptive Part In Man, The Mistress Of Error And Falsehood.
Truth
Lying
Men
No Soul Of High Estate Can Take Pleasure In Slander. It Betrays A Weakness.
Betrayal
Soul
Weakness
Nature Has Some Perfections To Show That She Is The Image Of God, And Some Defects To Show That She Is Only His Image.
Nature
Order
Perfection
Apart From Jesus Christ, We Do Not Know What Is Our Life, Nor Our Death, Nor God, Nor Ourselves.
Jesus
Christ
Knows
Man's Greatness Lies In His Power Of Thought.
Lying
Power
Greatness
Instinct Teaches Us To Look For Happiness Outside Ourselves.
Looks
Instinct
Teach
We Need Not Have The Loftiest Mind To Understand That Here Is No Lasting And Real Satisfaction, That Our Pleasures Are Only Vanity, That Our Evils Are Infinite, And, Lastly, That Death, Which Threatens Us Every Moment, Must Infallibly Place Us Within A Few Years Under The Dreadful Necessity Of Being Forever Either Annihilated Or Unhappy.
Death
Real
Vanity
All The Good Maxims Which Are In The World Fail When Applied To One's Self.
Self
World
Failing
Atheism Shows Strength Of Mind, But Only To A Certain Degree.
Atheist
Mind
Atheism
Look For The Truth, It Wants To Be Found.
Looks
Want
Found
Who Dispenses Reputation? Who Makes Us Respect And Revere Persons, Works, Laws, The Great? Who But This Faculty Of Imagination? All The Riches Of The Earth Are Inadequate Without Its Approval.
Law
Imagination
Earth
All Evil Stems From This-that We Do. Know How To Handle Your Solitude.
Evil
Solitude
Stem
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.
Men
Practice
Names
We Know Then The Existence And Nature Of The Finite, Because We Also Are Finite And Have Extension. We Know The Existence Of The Infinite And Are Ignorant Of Its Nature, Because It Has Extension Like Us, But Not Limits Like Us. But We Know Neither The Existence Nor The Nature Of God, Because He Has Neither Extension Nor Limits.
God
Ignorant
Limits
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.
Men
Perception
Doe
Force And Not Opinion Is The Queen Of The World; But It Is Opinion That Uses The Force. [fr., La Force Est La Reine Du Monde, Et Non Pas L'opinion; Mais L'opinion Est Celle Qui Use De La Force.]
Queens
Use
World
Men Despise Religion. They Hate It And Are Afraid It May Be True.
Fear
Hate
Men
How Comes It That A Cripple Does Not Offend Us, But A Fool Does? Because A Cripple Recognizes That We Walk Straight, Whereas A Fool Declares That It Is We Who Are Silly; If It Were Not So, We Should Feel Pity And Not Anger.
Silly
Insanity
Doe
It Is The Heart Which Perceives God And Not The Reason. That Is What Faith Is: God Perceived By The Heart, Not By The Reason.
God
Heart
Existentialism
The Exterior Must Be Joined To The Interior To Obtain Anything From God, That Is To Say, We Must Kneel, Pray With The Lips, And Soon, In Order That Proud Man, Who Would Not Submit Himself To God, May Be Now Subject To The Creature.
Men
Order
Religion
The Entire Ocean Is Affected By A Single Pebble.
Ocean
Pebbles
Affected
Orthodoxy On One Side Of The Pyrenees May Be Heresy On The Other.
Sides
May
Orthodoxy
Silence Is The Greatest Persecution; Never Do The Saints Keep Themselves Silent.
Silence
Saint
Silent
When Malice Has Reason On Its Side, It Looks Forth Bravely, And Displays That Reason In All Its Luster. When Austerity And Self-denial Have Not Realized True Happiness, And The Soul Returns To The Dictates Of Nature, The Reaction Is Fearfully Extravagant.
Self
Soul
Austerity
I Have Made This Letter Longer Than Usual, Only Because I Have Not Had The Time To Make It Shorter.
Time
Learning
Usual
Desire And Force Between Them Are Responsible For All Our Actions; Desire Causes Our Voluntary Acts, Force Our Involuntary.
Desire
Our Actions
Causes
Nothing Is More Dastardly Than To Act With Bravado Toward God.
God
Bravery
Cowardice
Notre Nature Est Dans Le Mouvement; Le Repos Entier Est La Mort. Our Nature Consists In Movement; Absolute Rest Is Death.
Movement
Absolutes
I Would Have Far More Fear Of Being Mistaken, And Of Finding That The Christian Religion Was True, Than Of Not Being Mistaken In Believing It True.
Christian
Believe
Mistaken
Small Minds Are Concerned With The Extraordinary, Great Minds With The Ordinary.
Math
Ordinary Extraordinary
Intelligence
Man Lives Between The Infinitely Large And The Infinitely Small.
Men
Kind Words Do Not Cost Much. Yet They Accomplish Much.
Kindness
Character
Accomplish Nothing
To Call A King "prince" Is Pleasing, Because It Diminishes His Rank.
Kings
Diminish
Ugly Deeds Are Most Estimable When Hidden.
Deeds
Ugly
Goodness
Piety Is Different From Superstition. To Carry Piety To The Extent Of Superstition Is To Destroy It. The Heretics Reproach Us With This Superstitious Submission. It Is Doing What They Reproach Us With.
Different
Superstitions
Submission
There Is A God-shaped Hole In The Life Of Every Man.
Men
Holes
Every Man
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.
Future
Mean
Past
We Know That There Is An Infinite, And We Know Not Its Nature. As We Know It To Be False That Numbers Are Finite, It Is Therefore True That There Is A Numerical Infinity. But We Know Not Of What Kind; It Is Untrue That It Is Even, Untrue That It Is Odd; For The Addition Of A Unit Does Not Change Its Nature; Yet It Is A Number, And Every Number Is Odd Or Even (this Certainly Holds Of Every Finite Number). Thus We May Quite Well Know That There Is A God Without Knowing What He Is.
Change
God
Knowledge
The Struggle Alone Pleases Us, Not The Victory.
Struggle
Best Effort
Victory
The State Of Man Is Inconstancy, Ennui, Anxiety.
Life
Men
Anxiety
The Truth About Nature We Discover With Our Brains. The Truth About Religion We Discover With Our Hearts.
Heart
Brain
To Ridicule Philosophy Is Really To Philosophize.
Philosophy
Ridicule
Condition De L'homme: Inconstance, Ennui, Inquie Tude. Man's Condition. Inconstancy, Boredom, Anxiety.
Men
Boredom
Anxiety
We Run Heedlessly Into The Abyss After Putting Something In Front Of Us To Stop Us From Seeing It.
Running
Abyss
Seeing
What A Difficult Thing It Is To Ask Someone's Advice On A Matter Without Coloring His Judgment By The Way In Which We Present Our Problem.
Advice
Matter
Way
Clarity Of Mind Means Clarity Of Passion, Too.
Passion
Mean
Mind
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.
Jesus
Useless
Impossible
Justice And Power Must Be Brought Together, So That Whatever Is Just May Be Powerful, And Whatever Is Powerful May Be Just.
Powerful
Justice
Together
The Statements Of Atheists Ought To Be Perfectly Clear Of Doubt. Now It Is Not Perfectly Clear That The Soul Is Material.
Atheist
Soul
Doubt
Those Who Do Not Hate Their Own Selfishness And Regard Themselves As More Important Than The Rest Of The World Are Blind Because The Truth Lies Elsewhere
Hate
Lying
Important
What A Chimera Then Is Man. What A Novelty! What A Monster... What A Contradiction, What A Prodigy
Inspiration
Men
Monsters
Opinion Is, As It Were, The Queen Of The World, But Force Is Its Tyrant.
Queens
Tyrants
World
Death Itself Is Less Painful When It Comes Upon Us Unawares Than The Bare Contemplation Of It, Even When Danger Is Far Distant.
Death
Painful
Contemplation
Trending Author
Ricky Gervais
Mervyn Peake
Thomas De Quincey
Gayle King
M. H. Abrams
Vincent Price
Category
Information