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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.

-Blaise Pascal

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I Condemn Equally Those

Blaise Pascal

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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.

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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!

We Desire Truth, And Find Within Ourselves Only Uncertainty. We Seek Happiness, And Find Only Misery And Death. We Cannot But Desire Truth And Happiness, And Are Incapable Of Certainty Or Happiness.

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.

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.

Orthodoxy On One Side Of The Pyrenees May Be Heresy On The Other.

It Is An Appalling Thing To Feel All One Possesses Drain Away.

Chess Is The Gymnasium Of The Mind.

Nature, Which Alone Is Good, Is Wholly Familiar And Common.

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.

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.

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

What A Chimera Then Is Man. What A Novelty! What A Monster... What A Contradiction, What A Prodigy

The Stream Is Always Purer At Its Source. [fr., Les Choses Valent Toujours Mieux Dans Leur Source.]

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.

The Mind Naturally Makes Progress, And The Will Naturally Clings To Objects; So That For Want Of Right Objects, It Will Attach Itself To Wrong Ones.

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.

The Last Act Is Bloody, However Pleasant All The Rest Of The Play Is: A Little Earth Is Thrown At Last Upon Our Head, And That Is The End Forever.

Thinking Too Little About Things Or Thinking Too Much Both Make Us Obstinate And Fanatical.

A Jester, A Bad Character.

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

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

Without [diversion] We Would Be In A State Of Weariness, And This Weariness Would Spur Us On To Seek A More Solid Means Of Escaping From It. But Diversion Amuses Us, And Leads Us Unconsciously To Death.

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

En Un Mot, L'homme Conna|"t Qu'il Est Mise Rable: Il Est Donc Mise Rable, Puisqu'il L'est; Mais Il Est Bien Grand, Puisqu'il Le Conna|"t. In One Word, Man Knows That He Is Miserable And Therefore He Is Miserable Because He Knows It; But He Is Also Worthy, Because He Knows His Condition.

Kind Words Do Not Cost Much. They Never Blister The Tongue Or Lips. They Make Other People Good-natured. They Also Produce Their Own Image On Men's Souls, And A Beautiful Image It Is.

There Are Two Kinds Of People One Can Call Reasonable: Those Who Serve God With All Their Heart Because They Know Him, And Those Who Seek Him With All Their Heart Because They Do Not Know Him.

The Philosophers Talk To You About The Dignity Of Man, And They Tempt You To Pride, Or They Talk To You About The Misery Of Man, And They Tempt You To Despair.

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.

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.

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.]

There Are Vices Which Have No Hold Upon Us, But In Connection With Others; And Which, When You Cut Down The Trunk, Fall Like The Branches.

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.

There Is A Lot Of Difference Between Tempting And Leading Into Error. God Tempts But Does Not Lead Into Error. To Tempt Is To Provide Opportunities For Us To Do Certain Things If We Do Not Love God, But Putting Us Under No Necessity To Do So. To Lead Into Error Is To Compel A Man Necessarily To Conclude And Follow A Falsehood.

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.

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.

It Is Right That What Is Just Should Be Obeyed. It Is Necessary That What Is Strongest Should Be Obeyed.

From Whence Comes It That A Cripple In Body Does Not Irritate Us, And That A Crippled Mind Enrages Us? It Is Because A Cripple Sees That We Go Right, And A Distorted Mind Says That It Is We Who Go Astray. But For That We Should Have More Pity And Less Rage.

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.

Since [man] Is Infinitely Removed From Comprehending The Extremes, The End Of Things And Their Beginning Are Hopelessly Hidden From Him In An Impenetrable Secret; He Is Equally Incapable Of Seeing The Nothing From Which He Was Made, And The Infinite In Which He Is Swallowed Up.

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.

Human Life Is Thus Only An Endless Illusion. Men Deceive And Flatter Each Other. No One Speaks Of Us In Our Presence As He Does When We Are Gone. Society Is Based On Mutual Hypocrisy.

The Heart Has Its Reasons, Which Reason Does Not Know. We Feel It In A Thousand Things. It Is The Heart Which Feels God, And Not Reason. This, Then, Is Perfect Faith: God Felt In The Heart.

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.

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.

Vanity Of Science. Knowledge Of Physical Science Will Not Console Me For Ignorance Of Morality In Time Of Affliction, But Knowledge Of Morality Will Always Console Me For Ignorance Of Physical Science.

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

Justice And Power Must Be Brought Together, So That Whatever Is Just May Be Powerful, And Whatever Is Powerful May Be Just.

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.

If I Had More Time I Would Write A Shorter Letter.

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

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.

To Find Recreation In Amusement Is Not Happiness.

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

The Eternal Silence Of These Infinite Spaces Frightens Me.

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

Native American

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

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

No Animal Admires Another Animal.

Justice Is As Much A Matter Of Fashion As Charm Is.

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.

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.

The War Existing Between The Senses And Reason.

What A Difficult Thing It Is To Ask Someone's Advice On A Matter Without Coloring His Judgment By The Way In Which We Present Our Problem.

The Greater Intellect One Has, The More Originality One Finds In Men. Ordinary Persons Find No Difference Between Men.

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.

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.

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

Men Often Take Their Imagination For Their Heart; And They Believe They Are Converted As Soon As They Think Of Being Converted.

The Married Should Not Forget That To Speak Of Love Begets Love.

Those Honor Nature Well, Who Teach That She Can Speak On Everything...

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.

Lord, Help Me To Do Great Things As Though They Were Little, Since I Do Them With Your Power; And Little Things As Though They Were Great, Since I Do Them In Your Name!

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

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

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

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.

If A Man Is Not Made For God, Why Is He Happy Only In God?

There Is A Virtuous Fear, Which Is The Effect Of Faith; And There Is A Vicious Fear, Which Is The Product Of Doubt. The Former Leads To Hope, As Relying On God, In Whom We Believe; The Latter Inclines To Despair, As Not Relying On God, In Whom We Do Not Believe. Persons Of The One Character Fear To Lose God; Persons Of The Other Character Fear To Find Him.

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.

How Shall One Who Is So Weak In His Childhood Become Really Strong When He Grows Older? We Only Change Our Fancies.

The Entire Ocean Is Affected By A Single Pebble.

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.

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.

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

Amusement Allures And Deceives Us And Leads Us Down Imperceptibly In Thoughtlessness To The Grave

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.

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.

Do You Wish People To Speak Well Of You? Then Do Not Speak At All Yourself.

The Christian Religion Teaches Me Two Points-that There Is A God Whom Men Can Know, And That Their Nature Is So Corrupt That They Are Unworthy Of Him.

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

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.

If There Is A God

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.

I Feel Engulfed In The Infinite Immensity Of Spaces Whereof I Know Nothing, And Which Know Nothing Of Me, I Am Terrified The Eternal Silence Of These Infinite Spaces Alarms Me.

There Are Two Equally Dangerous Extremes-to Shut Reason Out, And To Let Nothing Else In.

Perfect Clarity Would Profit The Intellect But Damage The Will.

In Faith There Is Enough Light For Those Who Want To Believe And Enough Shadows To Blind Those Who Don't.

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

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.

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

To Understand Is To Forgive.

Noble Deeds That Are Concealed Are Most Esteemed.

Deeds And Words

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

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

Man Is So Great That His Greatness Appears Even In The Consciousness Of His Misery. A Tree Does Not Know Itself To Be Miserable. It Is True That It Is Misery Indeed To Know One's Self To Be Miserable; But Then It Is Greatness Also. In This Way, All Man's Miseries Go To Prove His Greatness. They Are The Miseries Of A Mighty Potentate, Of A Dethroned Monarch.

Don't Try To Add More Years To Your Life. Better Add More Life To Your Years.

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.

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.

I Can Approve Of Those Only Who Seek In Tears For Happiness.

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

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

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

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

Let A Man Choose What Condition He Will, And Let Him Accumulate Around Him All The Goods And Gratifications Seemingly Calculated To Make Him Happy In It; If That Man Is Left At Any Time Without Occupation Or Amusement, And Reflects On What He Is, The Meagre, Languid Felicity Of His Present Lot Will Not Bear Him Up. He Will Turn Necessarily To Gloomy Anticipations Of The Future; And Unless His Occupation Calls Him Out Of Himself, He Is Inevitably Wretched.

What Matters It That Man Should Have A Little More Knowledge Of The Universe? If He Has It, He Gets Little Higher. Is He Not Always Infinitely Removed From The End, And Is Not The Duration Of Our Life Equally Removed From Eternity, Even If It Lasts Ten Years Longer?

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.

Voluptuousness, Like Justice, Is Blind, But That Is The Only Resemblance Between Them.

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.

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.

...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.

That Which Makes Us Go So Far For Love Is That We Never Think That We Might Have Need Of Anything Besides That Which We Love.

Most Of Man's Trouble Comes From His Inability To Be Still.

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

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

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.

Man Is Clearly Made To Think. It Is His Whole Dignity And His Whole Merit; And His Whole Duty Is To Think As He Ought. And The Order Of Thought Is To Begin With Ourselves, And With Our Author And Our End.

Therefore, Those To Whom God Has Imparted Religion By Intuition Are Very Fortunate And Justly Convinced. But To Those Who Do Not Have It, We Can Give It Only By Reasoning, Waiting For God To Give Them Spiritual Insight, Without Which Faith Is Only Human And Useless For Salvation.

Nothing Is So Conformable To Reason As To Disavow Reason.

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.

All Men's Miseries Derive From Not Being Able To Sit In A Quiet Room Alone.

Men Are So Completely Fools By Necessity That He Is But A Fool In A Higher Strain Of Folly Who Does Not Confess His Foolishness.

The Last Advance Of Reason Is To Recognize That It Is Surpassed By Innumerable Things; It Is Feeble If It Cannot Realize That.

Either God Exists Or He Doesn't. Either I Believe In God Or I Don't. Of The Four Possibilities, Only One Is To My Disadvantage. To Avoid That Possibility, I Believe In God.

Our Nature Lies In Movement; Complete Calm Is Death.

There Is A God-shaped Vacuum In Every Heart.

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

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.

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.

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?

The Greatness Of Man Is So Evident That It Is Even Proved By His Wretchedness. For What In Animals Is Nature, We Call In Man Wretchedness--by Which We Recognize That, His Nature Being Now Like That Of Animals, He Has Fallen From A Better Nature Which Once Was His.

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

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

Jesus Is The God Whom We Can Approach Without Pride And Before Whom We Can Humble Ourselves Without Despair.

We Have An Idea Of Truth, Invincible To All Scepticism.

Can Anything Be Stupider Than That A Man Has The Right To Kill Me Because He Lives On The Other Side Of A River And His Ruler Has A Quarrel With Mine, Though I Have Not Quarrelled With Him?

Our Reason Is Always Disappointed By The Inconstancy Of Appearances.

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

We Like Security: We Like The Pope To Be Infallible In Matters Of Faith, And Grave Doctors To Be So In Moral Questions So That We Can Feel Reassured.

The Gospel To Me Is Simply Irresistible.

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.

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.

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.

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.

If You Do Not Love Too Much, You Do Not Love Enough.

Excuse Me, Pray." Without That Excuse I Would Not Have Known There Was Anything Amiss.

It Is Not Possible To Have Reasonable Grounds For Not Believing In Miracles.

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...?

According To The Doctrine Of Chance, You Ought To Put Yourself To The Trouble Of Searching For The Truth; For If You Die Without Worshiping The True Cause, You Are Lost. "but," Say You, "if He Had Wished Me To Worship Him, He Would Have Left Me Signs Of His Will." He Has Done So; But You Neglect Them. Seek Them, Therefore; It Is Well Worth It.

It Is Not Shameful For A Man To Succumb To Pain And It Is Shameful To Succumb To Pleasure.

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.

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.

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

Force And Not Opinion Is The Queen Of The World; But It Is Opinion That Uses The Force. [fr., La Force Est La Reine Du Monde, Et Non Pas L'opinion; Mais L'opinion Est Celle Qui Use De La Force.]

The Knowledge Of God Is Very Far From The Love Of Him.

Amusement That Is Excessive And Followed Only For Its Own Sake, Allures And Deceives Us.

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.

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.

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

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

If Man Should Commence By Studying Himself, He Would See How Impossible It Is To Go Further.

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.

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

Silence Is The Greatest Persecution; Never Do The Saints Keep Themselves Silent.

Reflect On Death As In Jesus Christ, Not As Without Jesus Christ. Without Jesus Christ It Is Dreadful, It Is Alarming, It Is The Terror Of Nature. In Jesus Christ It Is Fair And Lovely, It Is Good And Holy, It Is The Joy Of Saints.

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.

Vanity Is But The Surface.

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

What Part Of Us Feels Pleasure? Is It Our Hand, Our Arm, Our Flesh, Or Our Blood? It Must Obviously Be Something Immaterial.

It Is Not Permitted To The Most Equitable Of Men To Be A Judge In His Own Cause.

There Are People Who Lie Simply For The Sake Of Lying.

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.

The Struggle Alone Pleases Us, Not The Victory.

Clarity Of Mind Means Clarity Of Passion, Too.

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.

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 Has Given Us Evidence Sufficiently Clear To Convince Those With An Open Heart And Mind.

Is It Courage In A Dying Man To Go, In Weakness And In Agony, To Affront An Almighty And Eternal God?

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.

To Ridicule Philosophy Is Really To Philosophize.

It Is The Heart Which Perceives God And Not The Reason.

Let It Not Be Imagined That The Life Of A Good Christian Must Be A Life Of Melancholy And Gloominess; For He Only Resigns Some Pleasures To Enjoy Others Infinitely Better.

Philosophers.-we Are Full Of Things Which Take Us Out Of Ourselves.

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.

If God Does Not Exist, One Loses Nothing By Believing In Him Anyway, While If He Does Exist, One Stands To Lose Everything By Not Believing.

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?

Tout Notre Raisonnement Se Re Duit A' Ce Der Au Sentiment. All Our Reasoning Comes Down To Surrendering To Feeling.

Something Incomprehensible Is Not For That Reason Less Real.

True Eloquence Makes Light Of Eloquence. True Morality Makes Light Of Morality.

The State Of Man Is Inconstancy, Ennui, Anxiety.

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

The Heart Has Its Reasons Of Which Reason Knows Nothing.

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Philippa Gregory

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