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I Have Spent Much Time In The Study Of The Abstract Sciences; But The Paucity Of Persons With Whom You Can Communicate On Such Subjects Disgusted Me With Them. When I Began To Study Man, I Saw That These Abstract Sciences Are Not Suited To Him, And That In Diving Into Them, I Wandered Farther From My Real Object Than Those Who Knew Them Not, And I Forgave Them For Not Having Attended To These Things. I Expected Then, However, That I Should Find Some Companions In The Study Of Man, Since It Was So Specifically A Duty. I Was In Error. There Are Fewer Students Of Man Than Of Geometry.

-Blaise Pascal

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I Have Spent Much

Blaise Pascal

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I Have Spent Much Time In The Study Of The Abstract Sciences; But The Paucity Of Persons With Whom You Can Communicate On Such Subjects Disgusted Me With Them. When I Began To Study Man, I Saw That These Abstract Sciences Are Not Suited To Him, And That In Diving Into Them, I Wandered Farther From My Real Object Than Those Who Knew Them Not, And I Forgave Them For Not Having Attended To These Things. I Expected Then, However, That I Should Find Some Companions In The Study Of Man, Since It Was So Specifically A Duty. I Was In Error. There Are Fewer Students Of Man Than Of Geometry.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

However Vast A Man's Spiritual Resources, He Is Capable Of But One Great Passion.

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

The Struggle Alone Pleases Us, Not The Victory.

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

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

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.

Reflecting Upon

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

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

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

Il Y A Deux Sortes D'esprits, L'un Ge Ome Trique, Et L'autre Que L'on Peut Appeler De Finesse. Le Premier A Des Vues Lentes, Dures Et Inflexibles; Mais Le Dernier A Une Souplesse De Pense E. There Are Two Kinds Of Mind, One Mathematical, The Other What One Might Call The Intuitive. The First Takes A Slow, Firm, Inflexible View, But The Latter Has Flexibility Of Thought.

The Gospel To Me Is Simply Irresistible.

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

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

Making Fun Of Philosophy Is Really Philosophising.

The Majority Is The Best Way, Because It Is Visible, And Has Strength To Make Itself Obeyed. Yet It Is The Opinion Of The Least Able.

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.

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.

Faith Is A Sounder Guide Than Reason. Reason Can Only Go So Far, But Faith Has No Limits.

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

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.

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

The State Of Man Is Inconstancy, Ennui, Anxiety.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

We Are Only Falsehood, Duplicity, Contradiction; We Both Conceal And Disguise Ourselves From Ourselves.

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.

If You Want Others To Have A Good Opinion Of You, Say Nothing.

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

Opinion Is The Queen Of The World.

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

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.

They Do Not Know That They Seek Only The Chase And Not The Quarry.

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

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

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.

Il N'est Pas Certain Que Tout Soit Incertain. (translation: It Is Not Certain That Everything Is Uncertain.)

We Feel Neither Extreme Heat Nor Extreme Cold; Qualities That Are In Excess Are So Much At Variance With Our Feelings That They Are Impalpable: We Do Not Feel Them, Though We Suffer From Their Effects.

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

Le Moi Est Ha|«s Sable. The Self Is Hateful.

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

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

The Great Mass Of People Judge Well Of Things, For They Are In Natural Ignorance, Which Is Man's True State.

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

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

What Are Our Natural Principles But Principles Of Custom?

A Town, A Landscape Are When Seen From Afar A Town And A Landscape; But As One Gets Nearer, There Are Houses, Trees, Tiles Leaves, Grasses, Ants, Legs Of Ants And So On To Infinity. All This Is Subsumed Under The Name Of Landscape.

Let Each Of Us Examine His Thoughts

We Like To Be Deceived.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Faith Affirms Many Things, Respecting Which The Senses Are Silent, But Nothing That They Deny. It Is Superior, But Never Opposed To Their Testimony

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

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

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

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

Knowledge Has Two Extremes. The First Is The Pure Natural Ignorance In Which All Men Find Themselves At Birth. The Other Extreme Is That Reached By Great Minds, Who, Having Run Through All That Men Can Know, Find They Know Nothing, And Come Back Again To That Same Natural Ignorance From Which They Set Out; This Is A Learned Ignorance Which Is Conscious Of Itself.

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.

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.

What Can Be Seen On Earth Points To Neither The Total Absence Nor The Obvious Presence Of Divinity, But To The Presence Of A Hidden God. Everything Bears This Mark.

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

The Sensitivity Of Men To Small Matters, And Their Indifference To Great Ones, Indicates A Strange Inversion.

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 Eternal Silence Of These Infinite Spaces Frightens Me.

We Are So Presumptuous That We Wish To Be Known To All The World, Even To Those Who Come After Us; And We Are So Vain That The Esteem Of Five Or Six Persons Immediately Around Us Is Enough To Amuse And Satisfy Us.

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!

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

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

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

Evil Is Easy, And Has Infinite Forms.

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.

The Immortality Of The Soul Is A Matter Which Is Of So Great Consequence To Us And Which Touches Us So Profoundly That We Must Have Lost All Feeling To Be Indifferent About It.

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

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.

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

If We Must Not Act Save On A Certainty, We Ought Not To Act On Religion, For It Is Not Certain. But How Many Things We Do On An Uncertainty, Sea Voyages, Battles!

I Rather Live As If God Exists To Find Out That He Doesn't Than Live As If He Doesn't Exist To Find Out He Does.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Custom Determines What Is Agreeable.

All Of Our Miseries Prove Our Greatness. They Are The Miseries Of A Dethroned Monarch.

Faith Is Different From Proof; The Latter Is Human, The Former Is A Gift From God.

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.

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.

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.

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

Either Christianity Is True Or It's False. If You Bet That It's True, And You Believe In God And Submit To Him, Then If It Is True, You've Gained God, Heaven, And Everything Else. If It's False, You've Lost Nothing, But You've Had A Good Life Marked By Peace And The Illusion That Ultimately, Everything Makes Sense. If You Bet That Christianity Is Not True, And It's False, You've Lost Nothing. But If You Bet That It's False, And It Turns Out To Be True, You've Lost Everything And You Get To Spend Eternity In Hell.

The Last Thing That We Find In Making A Book Is To Know What We Must Put First.

The Present Is Never The Mark Of Our Designs. We Use Both Past And Present As Our Means And Instruments, But The Future Only As Our Object And Aim.

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.

How Hollow Is The Heart Of Man, And How Full Of Excrement!

In Difficult Times Carry Something Beautiful In Your Heart.

Difficult Times

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

Mutual Cheating Is The Foundation Of Society.

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

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.

All Is One, All Is Different. How Many Natures Exist In Man? How Many Vocations? And By What Chance Does Each Man Ordinarily Choose What He Has Heard Praised?

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.

The Mind Of The Greatest Man On Earth Is Not So Independent Of Circumstances As Not To Feel Inconvenienced By The Merest Buzzing Noise About Him; It Does Not Need The Report Of A Cannon To Disturb His Thoughts. The Creaking Of A Vane Or A Pully Is Quite Enough. Do Not Wonder That He Reasons Ill Just Now; A Fly Is Buzzing By His Ear; It Is Quite Enough To Unfit Him For Giving Good Counsel.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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 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.

We Never Love A Person, But Only Qualities.

Our Imagination So Magnifies This Present Existence, By The Power Of Continual Reflection On It, And So Attenuates Eternity, By Not Thinking Of It At All, That We Reduce An Eternity To Nothingness, And Expand A Mere Nothing To An Eternity; And This Habit Is So Inveterately Rooted In Us That All The Force Of Reason Cannot Induce Us To Lay It Aside.

Apart From Jesus Christ, We Do Not Know What Is Our Life, Nor Our Death, Nor God, Nor Ourselves.

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.

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

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

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

Men Despise Religion. They Hate It And Are Afraid It May Be True.

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

Beneath The Surface

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.

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

Thus So Wretched Is Man That He Would Weary Even Without Any Cause For Weariness... And So Frivolous Is He That, Though Full Of A Thousand Reasons For Weariness, The Least Thing, Such As Playing Billiards Or Hitting A Ball, Is Sufficient Enough To Amuse Him.

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

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.

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

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

It Is Not Certain That Everything Is Uncertain.

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.

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

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.

I Am In The Utmost Perplexity, Yand Have Wished A Hundred Times, That If There Is A A God, Nature Would Manifest Him Without Ambiguity, And That If There Is Not, Every Imaginary Sign Of His Existence Might Vanish : In Short, Let Nature Speak Distinctly, Or Be Totally Silent, And I Shall Know What Course To Take.

We Sometimes Learn More From The Sight Of Evil Than From An Example Of Good; And It Is Well To Accustom Ourselves To Profit By The Evil Which Is So Common, While That Which Is Good Is So Rare.

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

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

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.

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

Contradiction Is Not A Sign Of Falsity, Nor The Lack Of Contradiction A Sign Of Truth.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Why God Has Instituted Prayer:— To Communicate To His Creatures The Dignity Of Causation.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Console-toi, Tu Ne Me Chercherais Pas Si Tu Ne M'avais Trouve . Comfort Yourself.you Would Not Seek Me If You Had Not Found Me.

Brave Deeds Are Wasted When Hidden.

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

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.

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.

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

Those Great Efforts Of Intellect, Upon Which The Mind Sometimes Touches, Are Such That It Cannot Maintain Itself There. It Only Leaps To Them, Not As Upon A Throne, Forever, But Merely For An Instant.

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

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.

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

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

Our Achievements Of Today Are But The Sum Total Of Our Thoughts Of Yesterday. You Are Today Where The Thoughts Of Yesterday Have Brought You And You Will Be Tomorrow Where The Thoughts Of Today Take You.

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.

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

The Christian's God Does Not Merely Consist Of A God Who Is The Author Of Mathematical Truths And The Order Of The Elements. The God Of Abraham, The God Of Isaac, The God Of Jacob, The God Of The Christians, Is A God Of Love And Consolation.

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.

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

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.

It Is Not Only Old And Early Impressions That Deceive Us; The Charms Of Novelty Have The Same Power.

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

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

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.

Silence. All Human Unhappiness Comes From Not Knowing How To Stay Quietly In A Room.

Some Vices Only Lay Hold Of Us By Means Of Others, And These, Like Branches, Fall On Removal Of The Trunk.

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.

If Ignorance Were Bliss, He'd Be A Blister

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

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.

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

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.

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

When We See A Natural Style, We Are Astonished And Charmed; For We Expected To See An Author, And We Find A Person.

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

Something Incomprehensible Is Not For That Reason Less Real.

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

Our Nature Consists In Motion; Complete Rest Is Death.

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

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.

Symmetry Is What We See At A Glance; Based On The Fact That There Is No Reason For Any Difference.

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