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Fire. God Of Abraham, God Of Isaac, God Of Jacob, Not Of The Philosophers And The Scholars. I Will Not Forget Thy Word. Amen.
-Blaise Pascal
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Fire. God Of Abraham,

Blaise Pascal
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Fire. God Of Abraham, God Of Isaac, God Of Jacob, Not Of The Philosophers And The Scholars. I Will Not Forget Thy Word. Amen.

Understanding the Quote: "fire. god of abraham, god of isaac, god of jacob, not of..."

This quote by Blaise Pascal reflects deeply on the theme of fire. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Fire, Philosopher, Forget, 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 fire and philosopher. 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.

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Fire
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Forget
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If It Is An Extraordinary Blindness To Live Without Investigating What We Are, It Is A Terrible One To Live An Evil Life, While Believing In God
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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.
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No Man Ever Believes With A True And Saving Faith Unless God Inclines His Heart; And No Man When God Does Incline His Heart Can Refrain From Believing.
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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.
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It Is Not Certain That Everything Is Uncertain.
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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
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The Mind Has Its Arrangement; It Proceeds From Principles To Demonstrations. The Heart Has A Different Mode Of Proceeding.
Heart
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Law, Without Force, Is Impotent.
Law
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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
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One-half Of Life Is Admitted By Us To Be Passed In Sleep, In Which, However, It May Appear Otherwise, We Have No Perception Of Truth, And All Our Feelings Are Delusions; Who Knows But The Other Half Of Life, In Which We Think We Are Awake, Is A Sleep Also, But In Some Respects Different From The Other, And From Which We Wake When We, As We Call It, Sleep. As A Man Dreams Often That He Is Dreaming, Crowding One Dreamy Delusion On Another.
Dream
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Men
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.
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What Amazes Me Most Is To See That Everyone Is Not Amazed At His Own Weakness.
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One Must Know Oneself. If This Does Not Serve To Discover Truth, It At Least Serves As A Rule Of Life And There Is Nothing Better.
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Death Is Easier To Bear Without Thinking Of It, Than The Thought Of Death Without Peril.
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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.
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Vanity Is So Secure In The Heart Of Man That Everyone Wants To Be Admired: Even I Who Write This, And You Who Read This.
Writing
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Men
Happiness Can Be Found Neither In Ourselves Nor In External Things, But In God And In Ourselves As United To Him.
Found
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Two Similar Faces, Neither Of Which Alone Causes Laughter, Use Laughter When They Are Together, By Their Resemblance.
Laughter
Two
Together
Our Notion Of Symmetry Is Derived Form The Human Face. Hence, We Demand Symmetry Horizontally And In Breadth Only, Not Vertically Nor In Depth.
Math
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In Order To Enter Into A Real Knowledge Of Your Condition, Consider It In This Image: A Man Was Cast By A Tempest Upon An Unknown Island, The Inhabitants Of Which Were In Trouble To Find Their King, Who Was Lost; And Having A Strong Resemblance Both In Form And Face To This King, He Was Taken For Him, And Acknowledged In This Capacity By All The People.
Strong
Kings
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It Is Not Our Task To Secure The Triumph Of Truth, But Merely To Fight On Its Behalf.
Truth
Responsibility
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Justice Is As Much A Matter Of Fashion As Charm Is.
Fashion
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When We Would Think Of God, How Many Things We Find Which Turn Us Away From Him, And Tempt Us To Think Otherwise. All This Is Evil, Yet It Is Innate.
God
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Brave Deeds Are Wasted When Hidden.
Brave
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Law Was Once Introduced Without Reason, And Has Become Reasonable.
Law
Reason
Reasonable
To Deny, To Believe, And To Doubt Well, Are To A Man What The Race Is To A Horse.
Horse
Believe
Math
You Always Admire What You Really Don't Understand.
Inspirational
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To Speak Freely Of Mathematics, I Find It The Highest Exercise Of The Spirit; But At The Same Time I Know That It Is So Useless That I Make Little Distinction Between A Man Who Is Only A Mathematician And A Common Artisan. Also, I Call It The Most Beautiful Profession In The World; But It Is Only A Profession.
Beautiful
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Men
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.
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Believe
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Faith Indeed Tells What The Senses Do Not Tell, But Not The Contrary Of What They See. It Is Above Them And Not Contrary To Them.
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There Is A God-shaped Hole In The Life Of Every Man.
Men
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Every Man
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
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Nothing Is So Intolerable To Man As Being Fully At Rest, Without A Passion, Without Business, Without Entertainment, Without Care.
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Men
The End Point Of Rationality Is To Demonstrate The Limits Of Rationality.
Thinking
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One Must Have Deeper Motives And Judge Everything Accordingly, But Go On Talking Like An Ordinary Person.
Talking
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Apart From Jesus Christ, We Do Not Know What Is Our Life, Nor Our Death, Nor God, Nor Ourselves.
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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?
Men
Age
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That We Must Love One God Only Is A Thing So Evident That It Does Not Require Miracles To Prove It.
Miracle
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What Use Is It To Us To Hear It Said Of A Man That He Has Thrown Off The Yoke That He Does Not Believe There Is A God To Watch Over His Actions, That He Reckons Himself The Sole Master Of His Behavior, And That He Does Not Intend To Give An Account Of It To Anyone But Himself?
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Men
Is It Courage In A Dying Man To Go, In Weakness And In Agony, To Affront An Almighty And Eternal God?
Death
Men
Agony
The Serene, Silent Beauty Of A Holy Life Is The Most Powerful Influence In The World, Next To The Night Of God.
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World
Condition De L'homme: Inconstance, Ennui, Inquie Tude. Man's Condition. Inconstancy, Boredom, Anxiety.
Men
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Anxiety
Nature Is An Infinite Sphere Of Which The Center Is Everywhere And The Circumference Nowhere.
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Force Rules The World-not Opinion; But It Is Opinion That Makes Use Of Force.
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Just As I Do Not Know Where I Came From, So I Do Not Know Where I Am Going. All I Know Is That When I Leave This World I Shall Fall Forever Into Oblivion, Or Into The Hands Of An Angry God, Without Knowing Which Of The Two Will Be My Lot For Eternity. Such Is My State Of Mind, Full Of Weakness And Uncertainty. The Only Conclusion I Can Draw From All This Is That I Must Pass My Days Without A Thought Of Trying To Find Out What Is Going To Happen To Me.
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All Men Seek Happiness. This Is Without Exception. Whatever Different Means They Employ, They All Tend To This End. The Cause Of Some Going To War, And Of Others Avoiding It, Is The Same Desire In Both, Attended With Different Views. The Will Never Takes The Least Step But To This Object. This Is The Motive Of Every Action Of Every Man, Even Of Those Who Hang Themselves.
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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.
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He Who Does Not Know His Way To The Sea Should Take A River For His Guide.
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Civil Wars Are The Greatest Of Evils. They Are Inevitable, If We Wish To Reward Merit, For All Will Say That They Are Meritorious.
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Nature Has Made All Her Truths Independent Of One Another. Our Art Makes One Dependent On The Other. But This Is Not Natural. Each Keeps Its Own Place.
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To Have No Time For Philosophy Is To Be A True Philosopher.
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When I Consider The Small Span Of My Life Absorbed In The Eternity Of All Time, Or The Small Part Of Space Which I Can Touch Or See Engulfed By The Infinite Immensity Of Spaces That I Know Not And That Know Me Not, I Am Frightened And Astonished To See Myself Here Instead Of There … Now Instead Of Then.
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There Are Two Equally Dangerous Extremes-to Shut Reason Out, And To Let Nothing Else In.
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The Pagans Do Not Know God, And Love Only The Earth. The Jews Know The True God, And Love Only The Earth. The Christians Know The True God, And Do Not Love The Earth.
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Montaigne Is Wrong In Declaring That Custom Ought To Be Followed Simply Because It Is Custom, And Not Because It Is Reasonable Or Just.
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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.
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Curiosity Is Only Vanity. We Usually Only Want To Know Something So That We Can Talk About It.
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Things Are Always At Their Best In Their Beginning.
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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.
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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.
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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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When We Do Not Know The Truth Of A Thing, It Is Good That There Should Exist A Common Error Which Determines The Mind Of Man, As, For Example, The Moon, To Which Is Attributed The Change Of Seasons, The Progress Of Diseases, Etc. For The Chief Malady Of Man Is A Restless Curiosity About Things Which He Cannot Understand; And It Is Not So Bad For Him To Be In Error As To Be Curious To No Purpose.
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Men
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If A Man Loves A Woman For Her Beauty, Does He Love Her? No; For The Smallpox, Which Destroys Her Beauty Without Killing Her, Causes His Love To Cease. And If Any One Loves Me For My Judgment Or My Memory, Does He Really Love Me? No; For I Can Lose These Qualities Without Ceasing To Be.
Love
Memories
Men
To Ridicule Philosophy Is Really To Philosophize.
Philosophy
Ridicule
How Vain Painting Is-we Admire The Realistic Depiction Of Objects Which In Their Original State We Don't Admire At All.
Painting
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It Is Your Own Assent To Yourself, And The Constant Voice Of Your Own Reason, And Not Of Others, That Should Make You Believe.
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Voice
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Continued Eloquence Is Wearisome.
Eloquence
Muhammad Established A Religion By Putting His Enemies To Death; Jesus Christ By Commanding His Followers To Lay Down Their Lives.
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Enemy
Islam
Love Has No Age As It Is Always Renewing Itself.
Anniversary
Age
Wedding Anniversary
That A Religion May Be True, It Must Have Knowledge Of Our Nature.
Religion
May
Being True
We Must Learn Our Limits. We Are All Something, But None Of Us Are Everything.
Wisdom
Addiction
Limits
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.
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Let Us Weigh The Gain And The Loss, In Wagering That God Is. Consider These Alternatives: If You Win, You Win All, If You Lose You Lose Nothing. Do Not Hesitate, Then, To Wager That He Is.
Loss
Winning
Lost Friendship
Custom Creates The Whole Of Equity, For The Simple Reason That It Is Accepted.
Simple
Reason
Accepted
The Eternal Being Is Forever If He Is At All.
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Forever
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All Our Reasoning Boils Down To Yielding To Sentiment.
Sentiments
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Religion Is So Great A Thing That It Is Right That Those Who Will Not Take The Trouble To Seek It If It Be Obscure, Should Be Deprived Of It.
Math
Religion
Trouble
Our True Dignity Consists — In Thought. Thence We Must Derive Our Elevation, Not From Space Or Duration. Let Us Endeavor Then To Think Well; This Is The Principle Of Morals.
Thinking
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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.
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Men
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We Have An Idea Of Truth, Invincible To All Scepticism.
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Ideas
Invincible
I Should Not Be A Christian But For The Miracles.
Christian
Miracle
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Time Heals Griefs And Quarrels, For We Change And Are No Longer The Same Persons. Neither The Offender Nor The Offended Are Any More Themselves.
Life
Grief
Offended You
Eloquence; It Requires The Pleasant And The Real; But The Pleasant Must Itself Be Drawn From The True.
Real
Eloquence
Pleasant
Love Knows No Limit To Its Endurance, No End To Its Trust, No Fading Of Its Hope; It Can Outlast Anything. Love Still Stands When All Else Has Fallen.
Endurance
Fading
Limits
They Do Not Know That They Seek Only The Chase And Not The Quarry.
Quarry
Knows
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.
Ignorance
Knowledge
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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
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Man Lives Between The Infinitely Large And The Infinitely Small.
Men
What A Chimera Then Is Man. What A Novelty! What A Monster... What A Contradiction, What A Prodigy
Inspiration
Men
Monsters
Nothing Is So Conformable To Reason As To Disavow Reason.
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All Men Naturally Hate Each Other. We Have Used Concupiscence As Best We Can To Make It Serve The Common Good, But This Is Mere Sham And A False Image Of Charity, For Essentially It Is Just Hate.
Hate
Men
Charity
If You Want Others To Have A Good Opinion Of You, Say Nothing.
Want
Opinion
Ifs
We Are Usually Convinced More Easily By Reasons We Have Found Ourselves Than By Those Which Have Occurred To Others.
Freedom
Democracy
Reason
Few Friendships Would Survive If Each One Knew What His Friend Says Of Him Behind His Back.
Friendship
Emotional
Behinds
Our Nature Lies In Movement; Complete Calm Is Death.
Travel
Lying
Journey
Voluptuousness, Like Justice, Is Blind, But That Is The Only Resemblance Between Them.
Justice
Blind
Resemblance
The Man Who Knows God But Does Not Know His Own Misery, Becomes Proud. The Man Who Knows His Own Misery But Does Not Know God, Ends In Despair...the Knowledge Of Jesus Christ Constitutes The Middle Course Because In Him We Find Both God And Our Own Misery. Jesus Christ Is Therefore A God Whom We Approach Without Pride, And Before Whom We Humble Ourselves Without Despair.
Jesus
Humble
Pride
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.
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Gist
Divine
Notre Nature Est Dans Le Mouvement; Le Repos Entier Est La Mort. Our Nature Consists In Movement; Absolute Rest Is Death.
Movement
Absolutes
That Queen, Of Error, Whom We Call Fancy And Opinion, Is The More Deceitful Because She Does Not Always Deceive. She Would Be The Infallible Rule Of Truth If She Were The Infallible Rule Of Falsehood; But Being Only Most Frequently In Error, She Gives No Evidence Of Her Real Quality, For She Marks With The Same Character Both That Which Is True And That Which Is False.
Queens
Real
Character
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.
Hate
Men
World
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.
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If There Is A God
God And Life
Those Who Are Accustomed To Judge By Feeling Do Not Understand The Process Of Reasoning, Because They Want To Comprehend At A Glance And Are Not Used To Seeking For First Principles. Those, On The Other Hand, Who Are Accustomed To Reason From First Principles Do Not Understand Matters Of Feeling At All, Because They Look For First Principles And Are Unable To Comprehend At A Glance.
Math
Hands
Judging
When A Natural Discourse Paints A Passion Or An Effect, One Feels Within Oneself The Truth Of What One Reads, Which Was There Before, Although One Did Not Know It. Hence One Is Inclined To Love Him Who Makes Us Feel It, For He Has Not Shown Us His Own Riches, But Ours. ...such Community Of Intellect That We Have With Him Necessarily Inclines The Heart To Love.
Life
Passion
Heart
Not Only Do We Know God By Jesus Christ Alone, But We Know Ourselves Only By Jesus Christ. We Know Life And Death Only Through Jesus Christ. Apart From Jesus Christ, We Do Not Know What Is Our Life, Nor Our Death, Nor God, Nor Ourselves.
Christian
Jesus
Life And Death
The Eternal Silence Of These Infinite Spaces Frightens Me.
Science
Space
Silence
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.
Life
Hope To Live
Arranging
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.
Men
Diversity
Principles
Tout Notre Raisonnement Se Re Duit A' Ce Der Au Sentiment. All Our Reasoning Comes Down To Surrendering To Feeling.
Feelings
Sentiments
Reasoning
Cold Words Freeze People, And Hot Words Scorch Them, And Bitter Words Make Them Bitter, And Wrathful Words Make Them Wrathful. Kind Words Also Produce Their Own Image On Men's Souls; And A Beautiful Image It Is. They Smooth, And Quiet, And Comfort The Hearer.
Beautiful
Men
People
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.
Men
Hands
Feet
All The Dignity Of Man Consists In Thought. Thought Is Therefore By Its Nature A Wonderful And Incomparable Thing. It Must Have Strange Defects To Be Contemptible. But It Has Such, So That Nothing Is More Ridiculous. How Great It Is In Its Nature! How Vile It Is In Its Defects! But What Is This Thought? How Foolish It Is!
Men
Ridiculous
Strange
Clarity Of Mind Means Clarity Of Passion, Too; This Is Why A Great And Clear Mind Loves Ardently And Sees Distinctly What It Loves.
Love
Inspirational
Passion
It Has Pleased God That Divine Verities Should Not Enter The Heart Through The Understanding, But The Understanding Through The Heart.
Heart
Understanding
Divine
Being Unable To Cure Death, Wretchedness, And Ignorance, Men Have Decided, In Order To Be Happy, Not To Think About Such Things.
Ignorance
Men
Thinking
Silence Is The Greatest Persecution; Never Do The Saints Keep Themselves Silent.
Silence
Saint
Silent
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
By Space The Universe Encompasses And Swallows Me Up Like An Atom; By Thought I Comprehend The World.
Space
Atoms
World
Our Reason Is Always Disappointed By The Inconstancy Of Appearances.
Appearance
Reason
Inconstancy
We Make An Idol Of Truth Itself; For Truth Apart From Charity Is Not God, But His Image And Idol, Which We Must Neither Love Nor Worship.
Love
Idols
Age
It Is Of Dangerous Consequence To Represent To Man How Near He Is To The Level Of Beasts, Without Showing Him At The Same Time His Greatness. It Is Likewise Dangerous To Let Him See His Greatness Without His Meanness. It Is More Dangerous Yet To Leave Him Ignorant Of Either; But Very Beneficial That He Should Be Made Sensible Of Both.
Greatness
Men
Ignorant
I Have Made This Letter Longer Than Usual, Only Because I Have Not Had The Time To Make It Shorter.
Time
Learning
Usual
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.
True Love
Believe
Mind
Man Is Equally Incapable Of Seeing The Nothingness From Which He Emerges And The Infinity In Which He Is Engulfed.
Inspirational
Men
Vision
The God Of The Infinite Is The God Of The Infinitesimal.
Infinite
Admiration Spoils All From Infancy.
Admiration
Infancy
Spoil
Dull Minds Are Never Either Intuitive Or Mathematical.
Mind
Dull
Mathematical
Desire And Force Between Them Are Responsible For All Our Actions; Desire Causes Our Voluntary Acts, Force Our Involuntary.
Desire
Our Actions
Causes
A Few Rules Include All That Is Necessary For The Perfection Of The Definitions, The Axioms, And The Demonstrations, And Consequently Of The Entire Method Of The Geometrical Proofs Of The Art Of Persuading.
Art
Perfection
Definitions
Justice Is What Is Established; And Thus All Our Established Laws Will Necessarily Be Regarded As Just Without Examination, Since They Are Established.
Law
Justice
Examination
All The Unhappiness Of Men Arises From One Single Fact, That They Cannot Stay Quietly In Their Own Chamber.
Men
Solitude
Facts
There Is No Arena In Which Vanity Displays Itself Under Such A Variety Of Forms As In Conversation.
Vanity
Arena
Form
La Vraie E Loquence Se Moque De L'e Loquence, La Vraie Morale Se Moque De La Morale. True Eloquence Has Notime Foreloquence, True Morality Has No Time For Morality.
Time
Morality
Morale
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
Our Nature Consists In Motion; Complete Rest Is Death.
Death
Dying
Nothing Is Thoroughly Approved But Mediocrity. The Majority Has Established This, And It Fixes Its Fangs On Whatever Gets Beyond It Either Way.
Majority
Mediocrity
Way
The Weather And My Mood Have Little Connection. I Have My Foggy And My Fine Days Within Me; My Prosperity Or Misfortune Has Little To Do With The Matter.
Fog
Weather
Connections
Let Each Of Us Examine His Thoughts
La Chose La Plus Importante A' Toute La Vie Est Le Choix Du Me Tier: Le Hasard En Dispose. The Most Important Thing In Life Is To Choose A Profession: Chance Arranges For That.
Things In Life
Important
Chance
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.
Children
Parent
Firsts
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.
Passion
Men
Spirit
The Last Proceeding Of Reason Is To Recognize That There Is An Infinity Of Things Which Are Beyond It. There Is Nothing So Conformable To Reason As This Disavowal Of Reason.
Lasts
Infinity
Reason
He Who Cannot Believe Is Cursed, For He Reveals By His Unbelief That God Has Not Chosen To Give Him Grace.
Believe
Giving
Grace
Christian Piety Annihilates The Egoism Of The Heart; Worldly Politeness Veils And Represses It.
Christian
Heart
Veils
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
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.
Unhappy
Fool
Reason
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
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
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
Mankind Suffers From Two Excesses: To Exclude Reason, And To Live By Nothing But Reason.
Two
Suffering
Excess
Men Often Take Their Imagination For Their Heart; And They Believe They Are Converted As Soon As They Think Of Being Converted.
Believe
Heart
Men
All The Miseries Of Mankind Come From One Thing, Not Knowing How To Remain Alone.
Knowing
Misery
Mankind
Everything That Is Written Merely To Please The Author Is Worthless.
Writing
Mathematical
Please
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.
Passion
Men
Deception
Thinking Too Little About Things Or Thinking Too Much Both Make Us Obstinate And Fanatical.
Thinking
Littles
Too Much
We Are Not Satisfied With Real Life; We Want To Live Some Imaginary Life In The Eyes Of Other People And To Seem Different From What We Actually Are.
Real
Eye
People
The Stream Is Always Purer At Its Source.
Purity
Source
Streams
We Are Never In Search Of Things, But Always In Search Of The Search.
Thought Makes The Whole Dignity Of Man; Therefore Endeavor To Think Well, That Is The Only Morality.
Men
Thinking
Morality
If There Were Only One Religion, God Would Indeed Be Manifest.
God
Religion God
Manifest
As Men Are Not Able To Fight Against Death, Misery, Ignorance, They Have Taken It Into Their Heads, In Order To Be Happy, Not To Think Of Them At All.
Taken
Ignorance
Sadness
It Is Not Only Old And Early Impressions That Deceive Us; The Charms Of Novelty Have The Same Power.
Deception
Novelty
Deceiving
All Our Dignity Lies In Our Thoughts.
Lying
Dignity
Our Thoughts
All The Excesses, All The Violence, And All The Vanity Of Great Men, Come From The Fact That They Know Not What They Are: It Being Difficult For Those Who Regard Themselves At Heart As Equal With All Men... For This It Is Necessary For One To Forget Himself, And To Believe That He Has Some Real Excellence Above Them, In Which Consists This Illusion That I Am Endeavoring To Discover To You.
Real
Believe
Heart
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.
Greatness
Men
Circles
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.
Humble
Humility
Pride
Nothing Is Surer Than That The People Will Be Weak.
People
Weak
Happiness Is Neither Within Us, Nor Without Us. It Is In The Union Of Ourselves With God.
Happiness
Unions
The Property Of Power Is To Protect.
Power
Protect
Property
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
You're Basically Killing Each Other To See Who's Got The Better Imaginary Friend.
Death
Spiritual
Atheist
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
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
All Mankind's Troubles Are Caused By One Single Thing, Which Is Their Inability To Sit Quietly.
Life
Inability
Trouble
The Heart Has Its Reasons Of Which Reason Knows Nothing.
Love
Inspirational
Life
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!
Independent
Differences
Decision
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
There Is Nothing So Insupportable To Man As To Be In Entire Repose, Without Passion, Occupation, Amusement, Or Application. Then It Is That He Feels His Own Nothingness, Isolation, Insignificance, Dependent Nature, Powerless, Emptiness. Immediately There Issue From His Soul Ennui, Sadness, Chagrin, Vexation, Despair.
Sadness
Passion
Men
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
Must We Kill To Prevent There Being Any Wicked? This Is To Make Both Parties Wicked Instead Of One.
Party
Wicked
Killing
We Like To Be Deceived.
Deception
Deceived
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
No Religion Except Ours Has Taught That Man Is Born In Sin; None Of The Philosophical Sects Has Admitted It; None Therefore Has Spoken The Truth
Philosophical
Men
Taught
The Gospel To Me Is Simply Irresistible.
Irresistible
When Intuition And Logic Agree, You Are Always Right.
Math
Intuition
Logic
Description Of Man: Dependence, Longing For Independence, Need.
Men
Independence
Needs
The Imagination Disposes Of Everything. It Creates Beauty, Justice, And Happiness, Which Are The Whole Of The World.
Inspirational
Happiness
Beauty
Just As All Things Speak About God To Those That Know Him, And Reveal Him To Those That Love Him, They Also Hide Him From All Those That Neither Seek Nor Know Him.
Speak
All Things
Knows
Lust Is The Source Of All Our Actions, And Humanity.
Humanity
Lust
Our Actions
[unbelievers] Think They Have Made Great Efforts To Get At The Truth When They Have Spent A Few Hours In Reading Some Book Out Of Holy Scripture, And Have Questioned Some Cleric About The Truths Of The Faith. After That, They Boast That They Have Searched In Books And Among Men In Vain.
Reading
Book
Men
Amusement That Is Excessive And Followed Only For Its Own Sake, Allures And Deceives Us.
Amusement
Sake
Deceiving
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.
Extremes
Regard
Ifs
[on Vanity:] The Nose Of Cleopatra: If It Had Been Shorter, The Face Of The Earth Would Have Changed.
Beauty
Vanity
Noses
If Magistrates Had True Justice, And If Physicians Had The True Art Of Healing, They Would Have No Occasion For Square Caps; The Majesty Of These Sciences Would Itself Be Venerable Enough.
Art
Healing
Squares
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
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
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.
Knowledge
Knows
One Thing
If You Gain, You Gain All; If You Lose, You Lose Nothing. Wager, Then, Without Hesitation, That He Exists.
Funny
God
Humorous
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
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