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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?

-Blaise Pascal

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God Is, Or He

Blaise Pascal

...

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?

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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.

Man Is Full Of Desires: He Loves Only Those Who Can Satisfy Them All. "this Man Is A Good Mathematician," Someone Will Say. But I Have No Concern For Mathematics; He Would Take Me For A Proposition. "that One Is A Good Soldier." He Would Take Me For A Besieged Town. I Need, That Is To Say, A Decent Man Who Can Accommodate Himself To All My Desires In A General Sort Of Way.

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.

All The Good Maxims Which Are In The World Fail When Applied To One's Self.

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.

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.

To Be Mistaken In Believing That The Christian Religion Is True Is No Great Loss To Anyone; But How Dreadful To Be Mistaken In Believing It To Be False!

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

Fuller Believed Human Societies Would Soon Rely Mainly On Renewable Sources Of Energy, Such As Solar- And Wind-derived Electricity,. Envisioned An Age Of "universal Education And Sustenance Of All Humanity". "the Heart Has Reasons That Reason Does Not Understand."

Something Incomprehensible Is Not For That Reason Less Real.

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

If There Were Only One Religion, God Would Indeed Be Manifest.

Nothing Is So Insufferable To Man As To Be Completely At Rest, Without Passions, Without Business, Without Diversion, Without Study. He Then Feels His Nothingness, His Forlornness, His Insufficiency, His Dependence, His Weakness, His Emptiness. There Will Immediately Arise From The Depth Of His Heart Weariness, Gloom, Sadness, Fretfulness, Vexation, Despair.

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.

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.

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

Nothing Is So Conformable To Reason As To Disavow Reason.

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.

Lost Friendship

Let Each Of Us Examine His Thoughts

Law, Without Force, Is Impotent.

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.

Custom Creates The Whole Of Equity, For The Simple Reason That It Is Accepted.

We Must Learn Our Limits. We Are All Something, But None Of Us Are Everything.

Eloquence; It Requires The Pleasant And The Real; But The Pleasant Must Itself Be Drawn From The True.

Good Deeds, When Concealed, Are The Most Admirable.

Most Of The Evils Of Life Arise From Man's Being Unable To Sit Still In A Room.

True Eloquence Makes Light Of Eloquence, True Morality Makes Light Of Morality; That Is To Say, The Morality Of The Judgment, Which Has No Rules, Makes Light Of The Morality Of The Intellect.... To Make Light Of Philosophy Is To Be A True Philosopher.

What Is It, In Your Opinion, To Be A Great Nobleman? It Is To Be Master Of Several Objects That Men Covet, And Thus To Be Able To Satisfy The Wants And The Desires Of Many. It Is These Wants And These Desires That Attract Them Towards You, And That Make Them Submit To You: Were It Not For These, They Would Not Even Look At You; But They Hope, By These Services... To Obtain From You Some Part Of The Good Which They Desire, And Of Which They See That You Have The Disposal.

The War Existing Between The Senses And Reason.

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.

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.

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.

The More Intelligence One Has, The More People One Finds Original. Commonplace People See No Difference Between Men.

There Should Be In Eloquence That Which Is Pleasing And That Which Is Real; But That Which Is Pleasing Should Itself Be Real.

There Is Nothing That We Can See On Earth Which Does Not Either Show The Wretchedness Of Man Or The Mercy Of God. One Either Sees The Powerlessness Of Man Without God, Or The Strength Of Man With God.

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.

The State Of Man Is Inconstancy, Ennui, Anxiety.

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.

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.

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.

I Take It As A Matter Not To Be Disputed, That If All Knew What Each Said Of The Other, There Would Not Be Four Friends In The World. This Seems Proved By The Quarrels And Disputes Caused By The Disclosures Which Are Occasionally Made.

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.

When We Read Too Fast Or Too Slowly, We Understand Nothing.

Books And Reading

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

Caesar Was Too Old, It Seems To Me, To Go Off And Amuse Himself Conquering The World. Such A Pastime Was All Right For Augustus And Alexander; They Were Young Men, Not Easily Held In Check, But Caesar Ought To Have Been More Mature.

[on Vanity:] The Nose Of Cleopatra: If It Had Been Shorter, The Face Of The Earth Would Have Changed.

Those Are Weaklings Who Know The Truth And Uphold It As Long As It Suits Their Purpose, And Then Abandon It.

Our Soul Is Cast Into A Body, Where It Finds Number, Time, Dimension. Thereupon It Reasons, And Calls This Nature Necessity, And Can Believe Nothing Else.

Man Is Equally Incapable Of Seeing The Nothingness From Which He Emerges And The Infinity In Which He Is Engulfed.

To Go Beyond The Bounds Of Moderation Is To Outrage Humanity.

Curiosity Is Only Vanity. Most Frequently We Wish Not To Know, But To Talk. We Would Not Take A Sea Voyage For The Sole Pleasure Of Seeing Without Hope Of Ever Telling.

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

If Men Knew Themselves, God Would Heal And Pardon Them.

Sneezing Absorbs All The Functions Of The Soul Just As Much As The [sexual] Act, But We Do Not Draw From It The Same Conclusions Against The Greatness Of Man, Because It Is Involuntary; Although We Bring It About, We Do So Involuntarily. It Is Not For The Sake Of The Thing In Itself But For Another End, And Is Therefore Not A Sign Of Man's Weakness, Or His Subjection To This Act.

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.

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

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

Great And Small Suffer The Same Mishaps.

There Is Enough Light For Those Who Only Desire To See, And Enough Obscurity For Those Who Have A Contrary Disposition

Two Things Control Men's Nature, Instinct And Experience.

It Is Your Own Assent To Yourself, And The Constant Voice Of Your Own Reason, And Not Of Others, That Should Make You Believe.

All Err The More Dangerously Because Each Follows A Truth. Their Mistake Lies Not In Following A Falsehood But In Not Following Another Truth.

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.

We Only Consult The Ear Because The Heart Is Wanting.

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.

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.

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.

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

Let Us, Then, Take Our Compass; We Are Something, And We Are Not Everything. The Nature Of Our Existence Hides From Us The Knowledge Of First Beginnings Which Are Born Of The Nothing; And The Littleness Of Our Being Conceals From Us The Sight Of The Infinite. Our Intellect Holds The Same Position In The World Of Thought As Our Body Occupies In The Expanse Of Nature.

To Deny, To Believe, And To Doubt Well, Are To A Man What The Race Is To A Horse.

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.

Our Nature Lies In Movement; Complete Calm Is Death.

There Would Be Too Great Darkness, If Truth Had Not Visible Signs.

The Last Thing We Decide In Writing A Book Is What To Put First.

Our Own Interests Are Still An Exquisite Means For Dazzling Our Eyes Agreeably.

There Are Only Three Types Of People; Those Who Have Found God And Serve Him; Those Who Have Not Found God And Seek Him, And Those Who Live Not Seeking, Or Finding Him. The First Are Rational And Happy; The Second Unhappy And Rational, And The Third Foolish And Unhappy.

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.

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.

Reason Commands Us Far More Imperiously Than A Master; For In Disobeying The One We Are Unfortunate, And In Disobeying The Other We Are Fools.

Meanings Receive Their Dignity From Words Instead Of Giving It To Them.

Opinion Is The Queen Of The World.

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.

We Implore The Mercy Of God, Not That He May Leave Us At Peace In Our Vices, But That He May Deliver Us From Them.

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.

The Manner In Which Epictetus, Montaigne, And Salomon De Tultie Wrote, Is The Most Usual, The Most Suggestive, The Most Remembered, And The Oftener Quoted; Because It Is Entirely Composed Of Thoughts Born From The Common Talk Of Life.

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.

Must We Kill To Prevent There Being Any Wicked? This Is To Make Both Parties Wicked Instead Of One.

Since We Cannot Know All That There Is To Be Known About Anything, We Ought To Know A Little About Everything.

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.

Curiosity Is Nothing More Than Vanity. More Often Than Not We Only Seek Knowledge To Show It Off.

May God Never Abandon Me.

What Are Our Natural Principles But Principles Of Custom?

Kind Words Produce Their Images On Men's Souls.

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.

When A Man Who Accepts The Christian Doctrine Lives Unworthily Of It, It Is Much Clearer To Say He Is A Bad Christian Than To Say He Is Not A Christian.

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.

Happiness Is Neither Within Us, Nor Without Us. It Is In The Union Of Ourselves With God.

There Are Three Means Of Believing--by Inspiration, By Reason, And By Custom. Christianity, Which Is The Only Rational Institution, Does Yet Admit None For Its Sons Who Do Not Believe By Inspiration. Nor Does It Injure Reason Or Custom, Or Debar Them Of Their Proper Force; On The Contrary, It Directs Us To Open Our Minds By The Proofs Of The Former, And To Confirm Our Minds By The Authority Of The Latter.

Evil Is Easily Discovered; There Is An Infinite Variety; Good Is Almost Unique. But Some Kinds Of Evil Are Almost As Difficult To Discover As That Which We Call Good; And Often Particular Evil Of This Class Passes For Good. It Needs Even A Certain Greatness Of Soul To Attain To This, As To That Which Is Good.

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.

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.

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.

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

Making Fun Of Philosophy Is Really Philosophising.

The Last Function Of Reason Is To Recognize That There Are An Infinity Of Things Which Surpass It.

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.

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.

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

How Vain Painting Is, Exciting Admiration By Its Resemblance To Things Of Which We Do Not Admire The Originals.

All The Miseries Of Mankind Come From One Thing, Not Knowing How To Remain Alone.

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 Have So Exalted A Notion Of The Human Soul That We Cannot Bear To Be Despised, Or Even Not To Be Esteemed By It. Man, In Fact, Places All His Happiness In This Esteem.

How Vain Painting Is-we Admire The Realistic Depiction Of Objects Which In Their Original State We Don't Admire At All.

I Cannot Judge My Work While I Am Doing It. I Have To Do As Painters Do, Stand Back And View It From A Distance, But Not Too Great A Distance. How Great? Guess.

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.

The Parts Of The Universe ... All Are Connected With Each Other In Such A Way That I Think It To Be Impossible To Understand Any One Without The Whole.

The Greatest Single Distinguishing Feature Of The Omnipotence Of God Is That Our Imagination Gets Lost Thinking About It.

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

Everything That Is Incomprehensible Does Not, However, Cease To Exist.

That Something So Obvious As The Vanity Of The World Should Be So Little Recognized That People Find It Odd And Surprising To Be Told That It Is Foolish To Seek Greatness; That Is Most Remarkable.

Admiration Spoils All From Infancy.

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.

We Must Keep Our Thought Secret, And Judge Everything By It, While Talking Like The People.

Our Nature Consists In Motion; Complete Rest Is Death.

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.

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.

All Man's Troubles Come From Not Knowing How To Sit Still In One Room.

What A Vast Difference There Is Between Knowing God And Loving Him.

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.

All This Visible World Is But An Imperceptible Point In The Ample Bosom Of Nature.

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

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.

An Advocate Who Has Been Well Paid In Advance Will Find The Cause He Is Pleading All The More Just.

The Weakness Of Human Reason Appears More Evidently In Those Who Know It Not Than In Those Who Know It.

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.

To Go Beyond The Bounds Of Moderation Is To Outrage Humanity. The Greatness Of The Human Soul Is Shown By Knowing How To Keep Within Proper Bounds. There Are Two Equally Dangerous Extremes- To Shut Reason Out, And Not To Let Nothing In.

Nothing Gives Rest But The Sincere Search For Truth.

The Charm Of Fame Is So Great That We Like Every Object To Which It Is Attached, Even Death.

You See, If The Height Of The Mercury [barometer] Column Is Less On The Top Of A Mountain Than At The Foot Of It (as I Have Many Reasons For Believing, Although Everyone Who Has So Far Written About It Is Of The Contrary Opinion), It Follows That The Weight Of The Air Must Be The Sole Cause Of The Phenomenon, And Not That Abhorrence Of A Vacuum, Since It Is Obvious That At The Foot Of The Mountain There Is More Air To Have Weight Than At The Summit, And We Cannot Possibly Say That The Air At The Foot Of The Mountain Has A Greater Aversion To Empty Space Than At The Top.

In Difficult Times Carry Something Beautiful In Your Heart.

Difficult Times

Desire And Force Between Them Are Responsible For All Our Actions; Desire Causes Our Voluntary Acts, Force Our Involuntary.

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

Le Silence E Ternel De Ces Espaces Infinis M'effraie. The Eternal Silence Of These Infinite Spaces Fills Me With Dread.

Having Been Unable To Strengthen Justice, We Have Justified Strength.

Christian Piety Annihilates The Egoism Of The Heart; Worldly Politeness Veils And Represses It.

Which Is The More Believable Of The Two, Moses Or China?

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

All That Tends Not To Charity Is Figurative. The Sole Aim Of The Scripture Is Charity.

Opinion Is, As It Were, The Queen Of The World, But Force Is Its Tyrant.

He Who Does Not Know His Way To The Sea Should Take A River For His Guide.

The More I See Of Mankind, The More I Prefer My Dog.

Men Never Do Evil So Completely And Cheerfully As When They Do It From Religious Conviction.

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.

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.

For After All What Is Man In Nature? A Nothing In Relation To Infinity, All In Relation To Nothing, A Central Point Between Nothing And All And Infinitely Far From Understanding Either. The Ends Of Things And Their Beginnings Are Impregnably Concealed From Him In An Impenetrable Secret. He Is Equally Incapable Of Seeing The Nothingness Out Of Which He Was Drawn And The Infinite In Which He Is Engulfed.

All Mankind's Troubles Are Caused By One Single Thing, Which Is Their Inability To Sit Quietly.

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

L'on A Beau Se Cacher A' Soi-me" Me, L'on Aime Toujours. We Vainly Conceal From Ourselves The Fact That We Are Always In Love.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

We Are Usually Convinced More Easily By Reasons We Have Found Ourselves Than By Those Which Have Occurred To Others.

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.

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!

No Animal Admires Another Animal.

Brave Deeds Are Wasted When Hidden.

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.

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

Atheism Shows Strength Of Mind, But Only To A Certain Degree.

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

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.

What Amazes Me Most Is To See That Everyone Is Not Amazed At His Own Weakness.

We Must Make Good People Wish That The Christian Faith Were True, And Then Show That It Is.

Jesus Christ Came To Tell Men That They Have No Enemies But Themselves.

It Is Not Good To Be Too Free. It Is Not Good To Have All One Wants.

Pride Counterbalances All Our Miseries, For It Either Hides Them, Or, If It Discloses Them, Boasts Of That Disclosure. Pride Has Such A Thorough Possession Of Us, Even In The Midst Of Our Miseries And Faults, That We Are Prepared To Sacrifice Life With Joy, If It May But Be Talked Of.

If Man Were Happy, He Would Be The More So, The Less He Was Diverted, Like The Saints And God.

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.

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

Man's Sensitivity To The Little Things And Insensitivity To The Greatest Are The Signs Of A Strange Disorder.

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.

Passion Cannot Be Beautiful Without Excess; One Either Loves Too Much Or Not Enough.

We Sail Within A Vast Sphere, Ever Drifting In Uncertainty, Driven From End To End.

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.

The Imagination Enlarges Little Objects So As To Fill Our Souls With A Fantastic Estimate; And, With Rash Insolence, It Belittles The Great To Its Own Measure, As When Talking Of God.

The Incredulous Are The More Credulous. They Believe The Miracles Of Vespasian That They May Not Believe Those Of Moses. [fr., Incredules Les Plus Credules. Ils Croient Les Miracle De Vespasien, Pour Ne Pas Croire Ceux De Moise.]

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.

To Find Recreation In Amusement Is Not Happiness.

The Multitude Which Is Not Brought To Act As A Unity, Is Confusion. That Unity Which Has Not Its Origin In The Multitude Is Tyranny.

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.

Unable To Make What Is Just Strong, We Have Made What Is Strong Just.

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

By Thought I Embrace The Universe.

The Heart Has Its Reasons Which Reason Knows Nothing Of... We Know The Truth Not Only By The Reason, But By The Heart." - Blaise Pascal

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

The Stoics Say, "retire Within Yourselves; It Is There You Will Find Your Rest." And That Is Not True. Others Say, "go Out Of Yourselves; Seek Happiness In Amusement." And This Is Not True. Illness Comes. Happiness Is Neither Without Us Nor Within Us. It Is In God, Both Without Us And Within Us.

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.

Our Senses Perceive No Extreme. Too Much Sound Deafens Us; Too Much Light Dazzles Us; Too Great Distance Or Proximity Hinders Ourview. Too Great Length And Too Great Brevity Of Discourse Tends To Obscurity; Too Much Truth Is Paralyzing.... In Short, Extremes Are For Us As Though They Were Not, And We Are Not Within Their Notice. They Escape Us, Or We Them.

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