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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.

-Blaise Pascal

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By A Peculiar Prerogative,

Blaise Pascal

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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.

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The Heart Has Its Reasons Of Which Reason Knows Nothing. We Feel It In A Thousand Things. I Say That The Heart Naturally Loves The Universal Being, And Naturally Loves Itself; And It Gives Itself To One Or The Other, And Hardens Itself Against One Or The Other, As It Chooses...it Is The Heart That Feels God, Not The Reason; This Is Faith.

Those Whom We Call Ancient Were Really New In All Things, And Properly Constituted The Infancy Of Mankind.

Men Are So Necessarily Mad, That Not To Be Mad Would Amount To Another Form Of Madness.

The Sole Cause Of All Human Misery Is The Inability Of People To Sit Quietly In Their Rooms.

Lust Is The Source Of All Our Actions, And Humanity.

Not Only Do We Know God Through Jesus Christ, We Only Know Ourselves Through Jesus Christ.

Clarity Of Mind Means Clarity Of Passion, Too.

The World Is Satisfied With Words, Few Care To Dive Beneath The Surface.

Beneath The Surface

Man Is But A Reed, The Most Feeble Thing In Nature, But He Is A Thinking Reed.

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.

We Never Live, But We Hope To Live; And As We Are Always Arranging To Be Happy, It Must Be That We Never Are So.

Human Life Is Thus Only A Perpetual Illusion; Men Deceive And Flatter Each Other. No One Speaks Of Us In Our Presence As He Does Of Us In Our Absence. Human Society Is Founded On Mutual Deceit; Few Friendships Would Endure If Each Knew What His Friend Said Of Him In His Absence, Although He Then Spoke In Sincerity And Without Passion.

Eloquence Is A Painting Of The Thoughts.

Rivers Are Roads Which Move, And Which Carry Us Whither We Desire To Go.

It Is The Contest That Delights Us, And Not The Victory.

Our Natures Lie In Motion, Without Which We Die.

Nothing Is So Important To Man As His Own State; Nothing Is So Formidable To Him As Eternity. And Thus It Is Unnatural That Thereshould Be Men Indifferent To The Loss Of Their Existence And To The Perils Of Everlasting Suffering.

If We Let Ourselves Believe That Man Began With Divine Grace, That He Forfeited This By Sin, And That He Can Be Redeemed Only By Divine Grace Through The Crucified Christ, Then We Shall Find Peace Of Mind Never Granted To Philosophers. He Who Cannot Believe Is Cursed, For He Reveals By His Unbelief That God Has Not Chosen To Give Him Grace.

We Know The Truth Not Only Through Our Reason But Also Through Our Heart. It Is Through The Latter That We Know First Principles, And Reason, Which Has Nothing To Do With It, Tries In Vain To Refute Them.

It Is Man's Natural Sickness To Believe That He Possesses The Truth.

Let Man Reawake And Consider What He Is Compared With The Reality Of Things; Regard Himself Lost In This Remote Corner Of Nature; And From The Tiny Cell Where He Lodges, To Wit The Universe, Weigh At Their True Worth Earth, Kingdoms, Towns, Himself. What Is A Man Face To Face With Infinity?

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.

All Our Reasoning Boils Down To Yielding To Sentiment.

There Are Two Types Of Mind . . . The Mathematical, And What Might Be Called The Intuitive. The Former Arrives At Its Views Slowly, But They Are Firm And Rigid; The Latter Is Endowed With Greater Flexibility And Applies Itself Simultaneously To The Diverse Lovable Parts Of That Which It Loves.

It Is Certain That The Soul Is Either Mortal Or Immortal. The Decision Of This Question Must Make A Total Difference In The Principles Of Morals. Yet Philosophers Have Arranged Their Moral System Entirely Independent Of This. What An Extraordinary Blindness!

Few Friendships Would Survive If Each One Knew What His Friend Says Of Him Behind His Back.

Montaigne Is Wrong In Declaring That Custom Ought To Be Followed Simply Because It Is Custom, And Not Because It Is Reasonable Or Just.

There Was Once In Man A True Happiness Of Which There Now Remain To Him Only The Mark And Empty Trace, Which He In Vain Tries To Fill From All His Surroundings, Seeking From Things Absent The Help He Does Not Obtain In Things Present.

Put The World's Greatest Philosopher On A Plank That Is Wider Than Need Be; If There Is A Precipe Below, Although His Reason May Convince Him That He Is Safe, His Imagination Will Prevail.

It's Not Those Who Write The Laws That Have The Greatest Impact On Society. It's Those Who Write The Songs.

The Stream Is Always Purer At Its Source.

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.

Je Ne Crois Que Les Histoires Dont Les Te Moins Se Feraient E Gorger. I Only Believe In Histories Told By Witnesses Who Would Have Had Their Throats Slit.

When We Wish To Correct With Advantage, And To Show Another That He Errs, We Must Notice From What Side He Views The Matter, For On That Side It Is Usually True.

The Sole Cause Of Man's Unhappiness Is That He Does Not Know How To Stay Quietly In His Room.

When A Soldier Complains Of His Hard Life (or A Labourer, Etc.) Try Giving Him Nothing To Do.

Nothing Gives Rest But The Sincere Search For Truth.

Continuous Eloquence Wearies. Grandeur Must Be Abandoned To Be Appreciated. Continuity In Everything Is Unpleasant. Cold Is Agreeable, That We May Get Warm.

Our Nature Consists In Motion; Complete Rest Is Death.

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.

L'homme N'est Qu'un Sujet Plein D'erreur, Naturelle Et Ineffa C° Able Sans La Gra" Ce. Man Is Nothing But A Subject Full Of Natural Error That Cannot Be Eradicated Except Through Grace.

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.

We Are Never In Search Of Things, But Always In Search Of The Search.

Man Is So Made That If He Is Told Often Enough That He Is A Fool He Believes It.

Noble Deeds That Are Concealed Are Most Esteemed.

Deeds And Words

Nature Is An Infinite Sphere Of Which The Center Is Everywhere And The Circumference Nowhere.

We Do Not Content Ourselves With The Life We Have In Ourselves And In Our Being; We Desire To Live An Imaginary Life In The Mind Of Others, And For This Purpose We Endeavor To Shine. We Labor Unceasingly To Adorn And Preserve This Imaginary Existence And Neglect The Real.

When Everyone Is Moving Towards Depravity, No One Seems To Be Moving, But If Someone Stops He Shows Up The Others Who Are Rushing On, By Acting As A Fixed Point.

Making Fun Of Philosophy Is Really Philosophising.

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.

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.

Extremes Are For Us As Though They Were Not, And We Are Not Within Their Notice. They Escape Us, Or We Them. This Is Our True State; This Is What Makes Us Incapable Of Certain Knowledge And Of Absolute Ignorance... This Is Our Natural Condition, And Yet Most Contrary To Our Inclination; We Burn With Desire To Find Solid Ground And An Ultimate Sure Foundation Whereon To Build A Tower Reaching To The Infinite. But Our Whole Groundwork Cracks, And The Earth Opens To Abysses.

All I Know Is That I Must Soon Die, But What I Know Least Is This Very Death Which I Cannot Escape.

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.

To Call A King "prince" Is Pleasing, Because It Diminishes His Rank.

Force Rules The World-not Opinion; But It Is Opinion That Makes Use Of Force.

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

Great And Small Suffer The Same Mishaps.

For Nature Is An Image Of Grace, And Visible Miracles Are Images Of The Invisible.

Men Seek Rest In A Struggle Against Difficulties; And When They Have Conquered These, Rest Becomes Insufferable.

If We Dreamed The Same Thing Every Night, It Would Affect Us Much As The Objects We See Every Day. And If A Common Workman Were Sure To Dream Every Night For Twelve Hours That He Was A King, I Believe He Would Be Almost As Happy As A King Who Should Dream Every Night For Twelve Hours On End That He Was A Common Workman.

Instinct Teaches Us To Look For Happiness Outside Ourselves.

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.

No Soul Of High Estate Can Take Pleasure In Slander. It Betrays A Weakness.

Nothing Is More Dastardly Than To Act With Bravado Toward God.

The Least Movement Is Of Importance To All Nature. The Entire Ocean Is Affected By A Pebble.

A Jester, A Bad Character.

We View Things Not Only From Different Sides, But With Different Eyes; We Have No Wish To Find Them Alike.

To Make A Man A Saint, It Must Indeed Be By Grace; And Whoever Doubts This Does Not Know What A Saint Is, Or A Man.

People Almost Invariably Arrive At Their Beliefs Not On The Basis Of Proof But On The Basis Of What They Find Attractive.

By Space The Universe Encompasses And Swallows Me Up Like An Atom; By Thought I Comprehend The World.

All Men Naturally Hate One Another. I Hold It A Fact, That If Men Knew Exactly What One Says Of The Other, There Would Not Be Four Friends In The World.

It Has Pleased God That Divine Verities Should Not Enter The Heart Through The Understanding, But The Understanding Through The Heart.

The End Point Of Rationality Is To Demonstrate The Limits Of Rationality.

The Present Letter Is A Very Long One, Simply Because I Had No Leisure To Make It Shorter.

Do They Think That They Have Given Us Great Pleasure By Telling Us That They Hold Our Soul To Be No More Than Wind Or Smoke, And Saying It Moreover In Tones Of Pride And Satisfaction? Is This Then Something To Be Said Gaily? Is It Not On The Contrary Something To Be Said Sadly, As Being The Saddest Thing In The World?

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.

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.

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.

The World Is Satisfied With Words. Few Appreciate The Things Beneath. [fr., Le Monde Se Paye De Paroles; Peu Approfondissement Les Choses.]

When We See An Effect Happen Always In The Same Manner, We Infer That It Takes Place By A Natural Necessity; As, For Instance, That The Sun Will Rise To Morrow; But Nature Often Deceives Us, And Will Not Submit To Its Own Rules.

You're Basically Killing Each Other To See Who's Got The Better Imaginary Friend.

...for The Truth Is Always Older Than All The Opinions Men Have Held Regarding It; And One Should Be Ignoring The Nature Of Truth If We Imagined That The Truth Began At The Time It Came To Be Known.

Discourses On Humility Are A Source Of Pride In The Vain And Of Humility In The Humble.

Description Of Man: Dependence, Longing For Independence, Need.

I Do Not Admire A Virtue Like Valour When It Is Pushed To Excess, If I Do Not See At The Same Time The Excess Of The Opposite Virtue, As One Does In Epaminondas, Who Displayed Extreme Valour And Extreme Benevolence. For Otherwise It Is Not An Ascent, But A Fall. We Do Not Display Our Greatness By Placing Ourselves At One Extremity, But Rather By Being At Both At The Same Time, And Filling Up The Whole Of The Space Between Them.

A Mere Trifle Consoles Us, For A Mere Trifle Distresses Us.

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.

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.

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.

Plurality Which Is Not Reduced To Unity Is Confusion; Unity Which Does Not Depend On Plurality Is Tyranny.

All Sorrow Has Its Root In Man's Inability To Sit Quiet In A Room By Himself.

Chance Gives Rise To Thoughts, And Chance Removes Them; No Art Can Keep Or Acquire Them.

No One Is Ignorant That There Are Two Avenues By Which Opinions Are Received Into The Soul, Which Are Its Two Principal Powers: The Understanding And The Will.

All Who Say The Same Things Do Not Possess Them In The Same Manner; And Hence The Incomparable Author Of The Art Of Conversation Pauses With So Much Care To Make It Understood That We Must Not Judge Of The Capacity Of A Man By The Excellence Of A Happy Remark That We Heard Him Make. Let Us Penetrate, Says He, The Mind From Which It Proceeds. It Will Oftenest Be Seen That He Will Be Made To Disavow It On The Spot, And Will Be Drawn Very Far From This Better Thought In Which He Does Not Believe, To Plunge Himself Into Another, Quite Base And Ridiculous.

Rivers Are Highways That Move On And Bear Us Whither We Wish To Go.

Nothing Fortifies Scepticism More Than That There Are Some Who Are Not Sceptics; If All Were So, They Would Be Wrong.

For As Old Age Is That Period Of Life Most Remote From Infancy, Who Does Not See That Old Age In This Universal Man Ought Not To Be Sought In The Times Nearest His Birth, But In Those Most Remote From It?

Civil Wars Are The Greatest Of Evils. They Are Inevitable, If We Wish To Reward Merit, For All Will Say That They Are Meritorious.

Justice Without Force Is Powerless; Force Without Justice Is Tyrannical.

The Consciousness Of The Falsity Of Present Pleasures, And The Ignorance Of The Vanity Of Absent Pleasures, Cause Inconstancy.

The More Intelligent A Man Is, The More Originality He Discovers In Others.

Man's Grandeur Is That He Knows Himself To Be Miserable.

Who Knows If This Other Half Of Life Where We Think We're Awake Is Not Another Sleep A Little Different From The First.

A Little Thing Comforts Us Because A Little Thing Afflicts Us.

The Gist Is That Good And Evil Are Foreordained. What Is Foreordained Comes Necessarily To Be After A Prior Act Of Divine Volition...rather, Everything Small And Large Is Written And Comes To Be In A Known And Expected Measure.

Do You Wish People To Think Well Of You? Don't Speak Well Of Yourself.

There Are Hardly Any Truths Upon Which We Always Remain Agreed, And Still Fewer Objects Of Pleasure Which We Do Not Change Every Hour, I Do Not Know Whether There Is A Means Of Giving Fixed Rules For Adapting Discourse To The Inconstancy Of Our Caprices.

Mutual Cheating Is The Foundation Of Society.

Condition De L'homme: Inconstance, Ennui, Inquie Tude. Man's Condition. Inconstancy, Boredom, Anxiety.

Jurisdiction Is Not Given For The Sake Of The Judge, But For That Of The Litigant.

I Have Made This Letter Longer Than Usual, Only Because I Have Not Had The Time To Make It Shorter.

Everything That Is Written Merely To Please The Author Is Worthless.

Jesus Was In A Garden, Not Of Delight As The First Adam, In Which He Destroyed Himself And The Whole Human Race, But In One Of Agony, In Which He Saved Himself And The Whole Human Race.

Rivers Are Roads That Move And Carry Us Whither We Wish To Go. [fr., Les Rivieres Sont Des Chemins Qui Marchant Et Qui Portent Ou L'on Veut Aller.]

Once Your Soul Has Been Enlarged By A Truth, It Can Never Return To Its Original Size.

All The Trouble In The World Is Due To The Fact That Man Cannot Sit Still In A Room.

Our Achievements Of Today Are But The Sum Total Of Our Thoughts Of Yesterday.

Fear Not, Provided You Fear; But If You Fear Not, Then Fear.

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?

On The Occasions When I Have Pondered Over Men's Various Activities, The Dangers And Worries They Are Exposed To At Court Or At War, From Which So Many Quarrels, Passions, Risky, Often Ill-conceived Actions And So On Are Born, I Have Often Said That Man's Unhappiness Springs From One Thing Alone, His Incapacity To Stay Quietly In One Room.

Extremes Are For Us As If They Were Not, And As If We Were Not In Regard To Them; They Escape From Us, Or We From Them.

The Art Of Subversion, Of Revolution, Is To Dislodge Established Customs By Probing Down To Their Origins In Order To Show How They Lack Authority And Justice.

Man Is Only A Reed, The Weakest In Nature, But He Is A Thinking Reed. There Is No Need For The Whole Universe To Take Up Arms To Crush Him: A Vapour, A Drop Of Water Is Enough To Kill Him. But Even If The Universe Were To Crush Him, Man Would Still Be Nobler Than His Slayer, Because He Knows That He Is Dying And The Advantage The Universe Has Over Him. The Universe Knows None Of This.

St. Augustine Teaches Us That There Is In Each Man A Serpent, An Eve, And An Adam. Our Senses And Natural Propensities Are The Serpent; The Excitable Desire Is The Eve; And Reason Is The Adam. Our Nature Tempts Us Perpetually; Criminal Desire Is Often Excited; But Sin Is Not Completed Till Reason Consents.

Anyone Who Does Not See The Vanity Of The World Is Very Vain Himself. So Who Does Not See It, Apart From Young People Whose Lives Are All Noise, Diversions, And Thoughts For The Future? But Take Away Their Diversion And You Will See Them Bored To Extinction. Then They Feel Their Nullity Without Recognizing It, For Nothing Could Be More Wretched Than To Be Intolerably Depressed As Soon As One Is Reduced To Introspection With No Means Of Diversion.

There Is A Certain Standard Of Grace And Beauty Which Consists In A Certain Relation Between Our Nature, Such As It Is, Weak Or Strong, And The Thing Which Pleases Us. Whatever Is Formed According To This Standard Pleases Us, Be It House, Song, Discourse, Verse, Prose, Woman, Birds, Rivers, Trees, Room, Dress, And So On. Whatever Is Not Made According To This Standard Displeases Those Who Have Good Taste.

When Intuition And Logic Agree, You Are Always Right.

No Animal Admires Another Animal.

E? Loquence Quipersuade Par Douceur, Non Par Empire, En Tyran, Non En Roi. Eloquence Should Persuade Gently, Not By Force Or Like A Tyrant Or King.

Quelque E Tendue D'esprit Que L'on Ait, L'on N'est Capable Que D'une Grande Passion. However Vast A Man's Spirit, He Is Only Capable Of One Great Passion.

God Is, Or He Is Not." But To Which Side Shall We Incline? Reason Can Decide Nothing Here. There Is An Infinite Chaos Which Separated Us. A Game Is Being Played At The Extremity Of This Infinite Distance Where Heads Or Tails Will Turn Up. What Will You Wager?

Necessity, That Great Refuge And Excuse For Human Frailty, Breaks Through All Law; And He Is Not To Be Accounted In Fault Whose Crime Is Not The Effect Of Choice, But Force.

That A Religion May Be True, It Must Have Knowledge Of Our Nature.

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.

We Run Heedlessly Into The Abyss After Putting Something In Front Of Us To Stop Us From Seeing It.

Since We Cannot Be Universal And Know All That Is To Be Known Of Everything, We Ought To Know A Little About Everything. For It Is Far Better To Know Something About Everything Than To Know All About One Thing. This Universality Is The Best. If We Can Have Both, Still Better; But If We Must Choose, We Ought To Choose The Former.

All The Unhappiness Of Men Arises From One Single Fact, That They Cannot Stay Quietly In Their Own Chamber.

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.

If We Submit Everything To Reason Our Religion Will Be Left With Nothing Mysterious Or Supernatural. If We Offend The Principles Of Reason Our Religion Will Be Absurd And Ridiculous . . . There Are Two Equally Dangerous Extremes: To Exclude Reason, To Admit Nothing But Reason.

How Vain Is Painting, Which Is Admired For Reproducing The Likeness Of Things Whose Originals Are Not Admired.

We Are Fools To Depend Upon The Society Of Our Fellow-men. Wretched As We Are, Powerless As We Are, They Will Not Aid Us; We Shall Die Alone.

The Principles Of Pleasure Are Not Firm And Stable. They Are Different In All Mankind, And Variable In Every Particular With Such A Diversity That There Is No Man More Different From Another Than From Himself At Different Times.

God Only Pours Out His Light Into The Mind After Having Subdued The Rebellion Of The Will By An Altogether Heavenly Gentleness Which Charms And Wins It.

Thought Makes The Whole Dignity Of Man; Therefore Endeavor To Think Well, That Is The Only Morality.

Discourses On Humility Are A Source Of Pride In The Vain And Of Humility In The Humble. So Those On Scepticism Cause Believers To Affirm. Few Men Speak Humbly Of Humility, Chastely Of Chastity, Few Doubtingly Of Scepticism.

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.

The Sweetness Of Glory Is So Great That, Join It To What We Will, Even To Death, We Love It.

Too Much And Too Little Wine. Give Him None, He Cannot Find Truth; Give Him Too Much, The Same.

If A Soldier Or Labourer Complain Of The Hardship Of His Lot, Set Him To Do Nothing.

Clarity Of Mind Means Clarity Of Passion, Too; This Is Why A Great And Clear Mind Loves Ardently And Sees Distinctly What It Loves.

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.

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.

Let Man Then Contemplate Nature In Full And Lofty Majesty, And Turn His Eyes Away From The Mean Objects Which Surround Him. Let Him Look At The Dazzling Light Hung Aloft As An Eternal Lamp To Lighten The Universe; Let Him Behold The Earth, A Mere Dot Compared With The Vast Circuit Which That Orb Describes, And Stand Amazed To Find That The Vast Circuit Itself Is But A Very Fine Point Compared With The Orbit Traced By The Starts As They Roll Their Course On High.

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.

As We Speak Of Poetical Beauty, So Ought We To Speak Of Mathematical Beauty And Medical Beauty. But We Do Not Do So; And That Reason Is That We Know Well What Is The Object Of Mathematics, And That It Consists In Proofs, And What Is The Object Of Medicine, And That It Consists In Healing. But We Do Not Know In What Grace Consists, Which Is The Object Of Poetry.

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.

One Has Followed The Other In An Endless Circle, For It Is Certain That As Man's Insight Increases So He Finds Both Wretchedness And Greatness Within Himself. In A Word Man Knows He Is Wretched. Thus He Is Wretched Because He Is So, But He Is Truly Great Because He Knows It.

There Are Some Who Speak Well And Write Badly. For The Place And The Audience Warm Them, And Draw From Their Minds More Than They Think Of Without That Warmth.

Opinion Is The Queen Of The World.

How I Hate This Folly Of Not Believing In The Eucharist, Etc.! If The Gospel Be True, If Jesus Christ Be God, What Difficulty Is There?

I Condemn Equally Those Who Choose To Praise Man, Those Who Choose To Condemn Him And Those Who Choose To Divert Themselves, And I Can Only Approve Of Those Who Seek With Groans.

Nothing Is Good But Mediocrity. The Majority Has Settled That, And Finds Fault With Him Who Escapes It At Whichever End... To Leave The Mean Is To Abandon Humanity.

Imagination Magnifies Small Objects With Fantastic Exaggeration Until They Fill Our Soul, And With Bold Insolence Cuts Down Great Things To Its Own Size, As When Speaking Of God.

Concupiscence And Force Are The Source Of All Our Actions; Concupiscence Causes Voluntary Actions, Force Involuntary Ones.

When I See The Blind And Wretched State Of Men, When I Survey The Whole Universe In Its Deadness, And Man Left To Himself With No Light, As Though Lost In This Corner Of The Universe Without Knowing Who Put Him There, What He Has To Do, Or What Will Become Of Him When He Dies, Incapable Of Knowing Anything, I Am Moved To Terror, Like A Man Transported In His Sleep To Some Terrifying Desert Island, Who Wakes Up Quite Lost, With No Means Of Escape. Then I Marvel That So Wretched A State Does Not Drive People To Despair.

Imagination Is The Deceptive Part In Man, The Mistress Of Error And Falsehood.

What A Strange Vanity Painting Is; It Attracts Admiration By Resembling The Original, We Do Not Admire.

If We Examine Our Thoughts, We Shall Find Them Always Occupied With The Past Or The Future.

Habit Is A Second Nature, Which Destroys The First.

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.

Nature Has Some Perfections To Show That She Is The Image Of God, And Some Defects To Show That She Is Only His Image.

The Fall Is An Offense To Human Reason, But Once Accepted, It Makes Perfect Sense Of The Human Condition.

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.

Chess Is The Gymnasium Of The Mind.

Earnestness Is Enthusiasm Tempered By Reason.

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.

We Should Seek The Truth Without Hesitation; And, If We Refuse It, We Show That We Value The Esteem Of Men More Than The Search For Truth.

The Truth About Nature We Discover With Our Brains. The Truth About Religion We Discover With Our Hearts.

There Is A God Shaped Vacuum In The Heart Of Every Man Which Cannot Be Filled By Any Created Thing, But Only By God, The Creator, Made Known Through Jesus.

[christianity] Endeavors Equally To Establish These Two Things: That God Has Set Up In The Church Visible Signs To Make Himself Known To Those Who Should Seek Him Sincerely, And That He Has Nevertheless So Disguised Them That He Will Only Be Perceived By Those Who Seek Him With All Their Heart.

It Is Impossible On Reasonable Grounds To Disbelieve Miracles.

I Know Whom I Have Believed.

Parents Fear The Destruction Of Natural Affection In Their Children. What Is This Natural Principle So Liable To Decay? Habit Is A Second Nature, Which Destroys The First. Why Is Not Custom Nature? I Suspect That This Nature Itself Is But A First Custom, As Custom Is A Second Nature.

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.

Man Is So Made That By Continually Telling Him He Is A Fool He Believes It, And By Continually Telling It To Himself He Makes Himself Believe It. For Man Holds An Inward Talk With Himself, Which It Pays Him To Regulate.

Human Beings Must Be Known To Be Loved; But Divine Beings Must Be Loved To Be Known.

Native American

It Is Not From Space That I Must Seek My Dignity, But From The Government Of My Thought. I Shall Have No More If I Possess Worlds. By Space The Universe Encompasses And Swallows Me Up Like An Atom; By Thought I Comprehend The World.

Eloquence Is A Painting Of Thought; And Thus Those Who, After Having Painted It, Add Something More, Make A Picture Instead Of A Portrait.

The Gospel To Me Is Simply Irresistible.

The Mind Has Its Arrangement; It Proceeds From Principles To Demonstrations. The Heart Has A Different Mode Of Proceeding.

Vanity Is Illustrated In The Cause And Effect Of Love, As In The Case Of Cleopatra.

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.

If We Do Not Know Ourselves To Be Full Of Pride, Ambition, Lust, Weakness, Misery, And Injustice, We Are Indeed Blind. And If, Knowing This, We Do Not Desire Deliverance, What Can We Say Of A Man...?

L'homme N'est Ni Ange Ni Be" Te, Et Le Malheur Veut Que Qui Veut Faire L'ange Fait La Be" Te. Man Is Neither Angel Nor Beast.unfortunately, He Who Wants To Act The Angel Often Acts The Beast.

Our Notion Of Symmetry Is Derived Form The Human Face. Hence, We Demand Symmetry Horizontally And In Breadth Only, Not Vertically Nor In Depth.

Justice Is What Is Established; And Thus All Our Established Laws Will Necessarily Be Regarded As Just Without Examination, Since They Are Established.

Law Was Once Introduced Without Reason, And Has Become Reasonable.

There Is A God-shaped Hole In The Life Of Every Man.

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.

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Pope Benedict XVI

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