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Instead Of Complaining That God Had Hidden Himself, You Will Give Him Thanks For Having Revealed So Much Of Himself.
-Blaise Pascal
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Instead Of Complaining That

Blaise Pascal
...
Instead Of Complaining That God Had Hidden Himself, You Will Give Him Thanks For Having Revealed So Much Of Himself.

Understanding the Quote: "instead of complaining that god had hidden himself, you will give him..."

This quote by Blaise Pascal reflects deeply on the theme of giving. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Giving, Complaining, Thanks, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Blaise Pascal interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Blaise Pascal

Blaise Pascal is celebrated for insightful thoughts on giving and complaining. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Giving
Complaining
Thanks
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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.
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Do Little Things As If They Were Great, Because Of The Majesty Of The Lord Jesus Christ Who Dwells In Thee.
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Love Has No Age As It Is Always Renewing Itself.
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Without Jesus Christ Man Must Be In Vice And Misery With Jesus Christ Man Is Free From Vice And Misery In Him Is All Our Virtue And All Our Happiness. Apart From Him There Is But Vice, Misery, Darkness, Death, Despair.
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Something Incomprehensible Is Not For That Reason Less Real.
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Chess Is The Gymnasium Of The Mind.
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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.
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All Human Evil Comes From A Single Cause, Man's Inability To Sit Still In A Room.
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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.
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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.
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Men Are So Necessarily Mad, That Not To Be Mad Would Amount To Another Form Of Madness.
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To Find Recreation In Amusement Is Not Happiness.
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Must We Kill To Prevent There Being Any Wicked? This Is To Make Both Parties Wicked Instead Of One.
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How Hollow Is The Heart Of Man, And How Full Of Excrement!
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If A Soldier Or Labourer Complain Of The Hardship Of His Lot, Set Him To Do Nothing.
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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.
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Mediocrity Makes The Most Of Its Native Possessions.
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Small Minds Are Concerned With The Extraordinary, Great Minds With The Ordinary.
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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.
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We Are So Presumptuous That We Should Like To Be Known All Over The World, Even By People Who Will Only Come When We Are No More. Such Is Our Vanity That The Good Opinion Of Half A Dozen Of The People Around Us Gives Us Pleasure And Satisfaction.
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Meanings Receive Their Dignity From Words Instead Of Giving It To Them.
Giving
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All Mankind's Unhappiness Derives From One Thing: His Inability To Know How To Remain In Repose In One Room.
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Man Is So Made That If He Is Told Often Enough That He Is A Fool He Believes It.
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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.
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Let Man Then Contemplate Nature In Full And Lofty Majesty, And Turn His Eyes Away From The Mean Objects Which Surround Him. Let Him Look At The Dazzling Light Hung Aloft As An Eternal Lamp To Lighten The Universe; Let Him Behold The Earth, A Mere Dot Compared With The Vast Circuit Which That Orb Describes, And Stand Amazed To Find That The Vast Circuit Itself Is But A Very Fine Point Compared With The Orbit Traced By The Starts As They Roll Their Course On High.
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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.]
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Those Who Are Clever In Imagination Are Far More Pleased With Themselves Than Prudent Men Could Reasonably Be.
Clever
Men
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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.
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All Sorrow Has Its Root In Man's Inability To Sit Quiet In A Room By Himself.
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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.
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Curiosity Is Nothing More Than Vanity. More Often Than Not We Only Seek Knowledge To Show It Off.
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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!
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There Would Be Too Great Darkness, If Truth Had Not Visible Signs.
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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.
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To Scorn Philosophy Is Truly To Philosophize.
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Justice Without Force Is Powerless; Force Without Justice Is Tyrannical.
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We Must Kill Them In War, Just Because They Live Beyond The River. If They Lived On This Side, We Would Be Called Murderers.
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Man Lives Between The Infinitely Large And The Infinitely Small.
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Discourses On Humility Are A Source Of Pride In The Vain And Of Humility In The Humble.
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Jesus Christ Came To Tell Men That They Have No Enemies But Themselves.
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If A Man Loves A Woman For Her Beauty, Does He Love Her? No; For The Smallpox, Which Destroys Her Beauty Without Killing Her, Causes His Love To Cease. And If Any One Loves Me For My Judgment Or My Memory, Does He Really Love Me? No; For I Can Lose These Qualities Without Ceasing To Be.
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[unbelievers] Think They Have Made Great Efforts To Get At The Truth When They Have Spent A Few Hours In Reading Some Book Out Of Holy Scripture, And Have Questioned Some Cleric About The Truths Of The Faith. After That, They Boast That They Have Searched In Books And Among Men In Vain.
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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.
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Man Is Obviously Made For Thinking. Therein Lies All His Dignity And His Merit; And His Whole Duty Is To Think As He Ought.
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To Understand Is To Forgive.
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The Present Letter Is A Very Long One, Simply Because I Had No Leisure To Make It Shorter.
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Continuous Eloquence Is Tedious.
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All This Visible World Is But An Imperceptible Point In The Ample Bosom Of Nature.
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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
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I Know Whom I Have Believed.
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We Are Usually Convinced More Easily By Reasons We Have Found Ourselves Than By Those Which Have Occurred To Others.
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The Greatest Single Distinguishing Feature Of The Omnipotence Of God Is That Our Imagination Gets Lost Thinking About It.
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The Method Of Not Erring Is Sought By All The World. The Logicians Profess To Guide It, The Geometricians Alone Attain It, And Apart From Science, And The Imitations Of It, There Are No True Demonstrations.
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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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Let Us Now Speak According To Natural Lights. If There Is A God, He Is Infinitely Incomprehensible. . . . We Are Then Incapable Of Knowing Of Either What He Is Or If He Is. . . .
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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.
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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.
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Which Is The More Believable Of The Two, Moses Or China?
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If He Exalts Himself, I Humble Him. If He Humbles Himself, I Exalt Him. And I Go On Contradicting Him Until He Understands That He Is A Monster That Passes All Understanding.
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The End Point Of Rationality Is To Demonstrate The Limits Of Rationality.
Thinking
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Nature Imitates Herself. A Grain Thrown Into Good Ground Brings Forth Fruit; A Principle Thrown Into A Good Mind Brings Forth Fruit. Everything Is Created And Conducted By The Same Master-the Root, The Branch, The Fruits-the Principles, The Consequences.
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Continued Eloquence Is Wearisome.
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You're Basically Killing Each Other To See Who's Got The Better Imaginary Friend.
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Without The Knowledge Of Our Wretchedness, The Knowledge Of God Creates Pride. With It, The Knowledge Of God Creates Despair. The Knowledge Of Christ Offers A Third Way, Because In Him We Find Both God And Our Wretchedness.
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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.
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The Whole Title By Which You Possess Your Property, Is Not A Title Of Nature But Of A Human Institution.
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[on Vanity:] The Nose Of Cleopatra: If It Had Been Shorter, The Face Of The Earth Would Have Changed.
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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.
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It Is The Heart Which Perceives God And Not The Reason.
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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.
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By A Peculiar Prerogative, Not Only Each Individual Is Making Daily Advances In The Sciences, And May Make Advances In Morality (which Is The Science, By Way Of Eminence, Of Living Well And Being Happy), But All Mankind Together Is Making A Continual Progress In Proportion As The Universe Grows Older. So That The Whole Human Race, During The Course Of So Many Ages, May Be Considered As One Man Who Never Ceases To Live And Learn.
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To Ridicule Philosophy Is Truly Philosophical. [fr., Se Moquer De La Philosophie C'est Vraiment Philosophe.]
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Brave Deeds Are Wasted When Hidden.
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It Is Not Shameful For A Man To Succumb To Pain And It Is Shameful To Succumb To Pleasure.
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All Err The More Dangerously Because Each Follows A Truth. Their Mistake Lies Not In Following A Falsehood But In Not Following Another Truth.
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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.
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It Is Dangerous To Tell The People That The Laws Are Unjust; For They Obey Them Only Because They Think Them Just. Therefore It Isnecessary To Tell Them At The Same Time That They Must Obey Them Because They Are Laws, Just As They Must Obey Superiors, Not Because They Are Just, But Because They Are Superiors. In This Way All Sedition Is Prevented.
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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.
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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.
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Amusement That Is Excessive And Followed Only For Its Own Sake, Allures And Deceives Us.
Amusement
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Deceiving
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.
Fear
Believe
Character
Human Life Is Thus Only A Perpetual Illusion; Men Deceive And Flatter Each Other. No One Speaks Of Us In Our Presence As He Does Of Us In Our Absence. Human Society Is Founded On Mutual Deceit; Few Friendships Would Endure If Each Knew What His Friend Said Of Him In His Absence, Although He Then Spoke In Sincerity And Without Passion.
Passion
Men
Deception
What A Strange Vanity Painting Is; It Attracts Admiration By Resembling The Original, We Do Not Admire.
Pain
Vanity
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Nothing Fortifies Scepticism More Than That There Are Some Who Are Not Sceptics; If All Were So, They Would Be Wrong.
Would Be
Facts
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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.
Play
Forever
Earth
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?
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Doe
If We Submit Everything To Reason Our Religion Will Be Left With Nothing Mysterious Or Supernatural. If We Offend The Principles Of Reason Our Religion Will Be Absurd And Ridiculous . . . There Are Two Equally Dangerous Extremes: To Exclude Reason, To Admit Nothing But Reason.
Two
Principles
Ridiculous
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.
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Understanding
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We Are Only Falsehood, Duplicity, Contradiction; We Both Conceal And Disguise Ourselves From Ourselves.
Lying
Duplicity
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It Is Not From Space That I Must Seek My Dignity, But From The Government Of My Thought. I Shall Have No More If I Possess Worlds. By Space The Universe Encompasses And Swallows Me Up Like An Atom; By Thought I Comprehend The World.
Government
Space
Atoms
The Fall Is An Offense To Human Reason, But Once Accepted, It Makes Perfect Sense Of The Human Condition.
Fall
Perfect
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Condition De L'homme: Inconstance, Ennui, Inquie Tude. Man's Condition. Inconstancy, Boredom, Anxiety.
Men
Boredom
Anxiety
Man Is Equally Incapable Of Seeing The Nothingness From Which He Emerges And The Infinity In Which He Is Engulfed.
Inspirational
Men
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The Sweetness Of Glory Is So Great That, Join It To What We Will, Even To Death, We Love It.
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Sweetness
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?
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Doe
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Those Whom We Call Ancient Were Really New In All Things, And Properly Constituted The Infancy Of Mankind.
Ancient
Infancy
Mankind
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.
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Numbers
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.
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Doe
Dans Une Grande A" Me Tout Est Grand. In A Great Soul Everything Isgreat.
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Great Souls
Death Is Easier To Bear Without Thinking Of It, Than The Thought Of Death Without Peril.
Death
Thinking
Bears
If You Do Not Love Too Much, You Do Not Love Enough.
Too Much
Enough
Ifs
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.
Religious
Men
Grace
The Last Thing That We Find In Making A Book Is To Know What We Must Put First.
Book
Lasts
Firsts
No One Is Offended At Not Seeing Everything; But One Does Not Like To Be Mistaken, And That Perhaps Arises From The Fact That Man Naturally Cannot See Everything, And That Naturally He Cannot Err In The Side He Looks At, Since The Perceptions Of Our Senses Are Always True.
Men
Perception
Doe
Those Who Write Against Vanity Want The Glory Of Having Written Well, And Their Readers The Glory Of Reading Well, And I Who Write This Have The Same Desire, As Perhaps Those Who Read This Have Also.
Reading
Writing
Math
Jurisdiction Is Not Given For The Sake Of The Judge, But For That Of The Litigant.
Judging
Sake
Authority
No Religion Except Ours Has Taught That Man Is Born In Sin; None Of The Philosophical Sects Has Admitted It; None Therefore Has Spoken The Truth
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Men
Taught
The Mind Has Its Arrangement; It Proceeds From Principles To Demonstrations. The Heart Has A Different Mode Of Proceeding.
Heart
Mind
Principles
Parents Fear The Destruction Of Natural Affection In Their Children. What Is This Natural Principle So Liable To Decay? Habit Is A Second Nature, Which Destroys The First. Why Is Not Custom Nature? I Suspect That This Nature Itself Is But A First Custom, As Custom Is A Second Nature.
Children
Parent
Firsts
Cold Words Freeze People, And Hot Words Scorch Them, And Bitter Words Make Them Bitter, And Wrathful Words Make Them Wrathful. Kind Words Also Produce Their Own Image On Men's Souls; And A Beautiful Image It Is. They Smooth, And Quiet, And Comfort The Hearer.
Beautiful
Men
People
Just As I Do Not Know Where I Came From, So I Do Not Know Where I Am Going. All I Know Is That When I Leave This World I Shall Fall Forever Into Oblivion, Or Into The Hands Of An Angry God, Without Knowing Which Of The Two Will Be My Lot For Eternity. Such Is My State Of Mind, Full Of Weakness And Uncertainty. The Only Conclusion I Can Draw From All This Is That I Must Pass My Days Without A Thought Of Trying To Find Out What Is Going To Happen To Me.
Fall
Hands
Two
Continuous Eloquence Wearies. Grandeur Must Be Abandoned To Be Appreciated. Continuity In Everything Is Unpleasant. Cold Is Agreeable, That We May Get Warm.
May
Cold
Appreciated
Nothing Is So Conformable To Reason As To Disavow Reason.
Reason
The Strength Of A Man's Virtue Should Not Be Measured By His Special Exertions, But By His Habitual Acts.
Inspirational
Strength
Wisdom
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.
Heart
Order
Mind
Extremes Are For Us As Though They Were Not, And We Are Not Within Their Notice. They Escape Us, Or We Them. This Is Our True State; This Is What Makes Us Incapable Of Certain Knowledge And Of Absolute Ignorance... This Is Our Natural Condition, And Yet Most Contrary To Our Inclination; We Burn With Desire To Find Solid Ground And An Ultimate Sure Foundation Whereon To Build A Tower Reaching To The Infinite. But Our Whole Groundwork Cracks, And The Earth Opens To Abysses.
Ignorance
Knowledge
Desire
Habit Is A Second Nature That Destroys The First. But What Is Nature? Why Is Habit Not Natural? I Am Very Much Afraid That Nature Itself Is Only A First Habit, Just As Habit Is A Second Nature.
Nature
Firsts
Habit
Nothing Is So Important To Man As His Own State; Nothing Is So Formidable To Him As Eternity. And Thus It Is Unnatural That Thereshould Be Men Indifferent To The Loss Of Their Existence And To The Perils Of Everlasting Suffering.
Death
Loss
Men
The Art Of Revolutionizing And Overturning States Is To Undermine Established Customs, By Going Back To Their Origin, In Order To Mark Their Want Of Justice.
Art
Order
Justice
The God Of The Infinite Is The God Of The Infinitesimal.
Infinite
Reverend Fathers, My Letters Did Not Usually Follow Each Other At Such Close Intervals, Nor Were They So Long.... This One Would Not Be So Long Had I But The Leisure To Make It Shorter.
Father
Math
Long
The Best Defense Against Logic Is Ignorance.
Ignorance
Math
Defense
Man's True Nature Being Lost, Everything Becomes His Nature; As, His True Good Being Lost, Everything Becomes His Good.
Men
Lost Friendship
Lost Everything
The Knowledge Of God Is Very Far From The Love Of Him.
Valentines Day
God
Knowledge
Nature Is An Infinite Sphere Of Which The Center Is Everywhere And The Circumference Nowhere.
Nature
Math
Garden
Love Has Reasons Which Reason Cannot Understand.
Reason
Reason To Love
When We Are In Love We Seem To Ourselves Quite Different From What We Were Before.
Love
Inspiring
Inspirational Life
Man Is Neither Angel Nor Beast.
Angel
Men
Beast
Nature Has Some Perfections To Show That She Is The Image Of God, And Some Defects To Show That She Is Only His Image.
Nature
Order
Perfection
Le Silence Est La Plus Grande Perse Cution: Jamais Les Saints Ne Se Sont Tus. Silence Is The Greatest Of All Persecutions: No Saint Was Ever Silent.
Silence
Saint
Silent
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.
Mean
Vanity
People
The Gospel To Me Is Simply Irresistible.
Irresistible
Eloquence Is The Painting Of Thought.
Painting
Eloquence
Silence Is The Greatest Persecution; Never Do The Saints Keep Themselves Silent.
Silence
Saint
Silent
Justice Is As Much A Matter Of Fashion As Charm Is.
Fashion
Justice
Matter
Le Nez De Cle Opa" Tre: S'il E U" T E Te Plus Court, Toute La Face De La Terre Aurait Change . Cleopatra'snose: If It Had Beenshorter The Whole Face Of The Earth Would Have Been Different.
Different
Earth
Faces
I Should Not Be A Christian But For The Miracles.
Christian
Miracle
Should
When A Soldier Complains Of His Hard Life (or A Labourer, Etc.) Try Giving Him Nothing To Do.
Giving
Soldier
Hard Life
When A Natural Discourse Paints A Passion Or An Effect, One Feels Within Oneself The Truth Of What One Reads, Which Was There Before, Although One Did Not Know It. Hence One Is Inclined To Love Him Who Makes Us Feel It, For He Has Not Shown Us His Own Riches, But Ours. ...such Community Of Intellect That We Have With Him Necessarily Inclines The Heart To Love.
Life
Passion
Heart
The Supreme Function Of Reason Is To Show Man That Some Things Are Beyond Reason.
Math
Men
Logic
Things Are Always At Their Best In Their Beginning.
New Beginnings
Eloquence Is A Painting Of The Thoughts.
Painting
Eloquence
Plurality Which Is Not Reduced To Unity Is Confusion; Unity Which Does Not Depend On Plurality Is Tyranny.
Confusion
Unity
Doe
The Heart Has Arguments With Which The Logic Of Mind Is Not Aquainted.
Heart
Mind
Logic
When I Have Occasionally Set Myself To Consider The Different Distractions Of Men, The Pains And Perils To Which They Expose Themselves I Have Discovered That All The Unhappiness Of Men Arises From One Single Fact, That They Cannot Stay Quietly In Their Own Chamber.
Pain
Men
Facts
Eloquence; It Requires The Pleasant And The Real; But The Pleasant Must Itself Be Drawn From The True.
Real
Eloquence
Pleasant
Generally We Are Occupied Either With The Miseries Which Now We Feel, Or With Those Which Threaten; And Even When We See Ourselves Sufficiently Secure From The Approach Of Either, Still Fretfulness, Though Unwarranted By Either Present Or Expected Affliction, Fails Not To Spring Up From The Deep Recesses Of The Heart, Where Its Roots Naturally Grow, And To Fill The Soul With Its Poison.
Spring
Heart
Roots
Man's Sensitivity To The Little Things And Insensitivity To The Greatest Are The Signs Of A Strange Disorder.
Men
Littles
Strange
Two Things Control Men's Nature, Instinct And Experience.
Nature
Men
Two
Law, Without Force, Is Impotent.
Law
Lawyer
Force
The Eternal Silence Of These Infinite Spaces Frightens Me.
Science
Space
Silence
In Proportion As Our Own Mind Is Enlarged We Discover A Greater Number Of Men Of Originality. Commonplace People See No Difference Between One Man And Another.
Appreciation
Men
Differences
All Of Our Miseries Prove Our Greatness. They Are The Miseries Of A Dethroned Monarch.
Greatness
Misery
Prove
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.
Cutting
Small Objects
Imagination
It Is Dangerous To Explain Too Clearly To Man How Like He Is To The Animals Without Pointing Out His Greatness. It Is Also Dangerous To Make Too Much Of His Greatness Without His Vileness. It Is Still More Dangerous To Leave Him In Ignorance Of Both, But It Is Most Valuable To Represent Both To Him. Man Must Not Be Allowed To Believe That He Is Equal Either To Animals Or To Angels, Nor To Be Unaware Of Either, But He Must Know Both.
Believe
Ignorance
Angel
It Is Not Certain That Everything Is Uncertain.
Math
Intelligence
Uncertain
The Entire Ocean Is Affected By A Single Pebble.
Ocean
Pebbles
Affected
A Jester, A Bad Character.
Character
Jester
Bad Character
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.
Views
Wish
Matter
All Men Are Almost Led To Believe Not Of Proof, But By Attraction. This Way Is Base, Ignoble, And Irrelevant; Every One Therefore Disavows It. Each One Professes To Believe And Even To Love Nothing But What He Knows To Be Worthy Of Belief And Love.
Believe
Men
And Love
Most Of Man's Trouble Comes From His Inability To Be Still.
Men
Inability
Trouble
The More I See Of Mankind, The More I Prefer My Dog.
Dog
Mankind
My Dog
Who Can Doubt That We Exist Only To Love? Disguise It, In Fact, As We Will, We Love Without Intermission... We Live Not A Moment Exempt From Its Influence.
Love
Doubt
Facts
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.
Men
Mercy Of God
Doe
Le Silence E Ternel De Ces Espaces Infinis M'effraie. The Eternal Silence Of These Infinite Spaces Fills Me With Dread.
Space
Silence
Infinite
How Shall One Who Is So Weak In His Childhood Become Really Strong When He Grows Older? We Only Change Our Fancies.
Strong
Childhood
Immaturity
The Sum Of A Man's Problems Come From His Inability To Be Alone In A Silent Room.
Men
Inability
Rooms
We Only Consult The Ear Because The Heart Is Wanting.
Heart
Listening
Ears
St. Augustine Teaches Us That There Is In Each Man A Serpent, An Eve, And An Adam. Our Senses And Natural Propensities Are The Serpent; The Excitable Desire Is The Eve; And Reason Is The Adam. Our Nature Tempts Us Perpetually; Criminal Desire Is Often Excited; But Sin Is Not Completed Till Reason Consents.
Men
Temptation
Desire
All Man's Troubles Come From Not Knowing How To Sit Still In One Room.
Blessing
Men
Knowing
If Our Condition Were Truly Happy, We Would Not Need Diversion From Thinking Of It In Order To Make Ourselves Happy.
Order
Truly Happy
Diversion
The Pagans Do Not Know God, And Love Only The Earth. The Jews Know The True God, And Love Only The Earth. The Christians Know The True God, And Do Not Love The Earth.
Christian
Environmental
And Love
Faith Affirms Many Things, Respecting Which The Senses Are Silent, But Nothing That They Deny. It Is Superior, But Never Opposed To Their Testimony
Faith
Silent
Deny
All Men Naturally Hate Each Other. We Have Used Concupiscence As Best We Can To Make It Serve The Common Good, But This Is Mere Sham And A False Image Of Charity, For Essentially It Is Just Hate.
Hate
Men
Charity
I Can Well Conceive A Man Without Hands, Feet, Head. But I Cannot Conceive Man Without Thought; He Would Be A Stone Or A Brute.
Men
Hands
Feet
Our Nature Consists In Motion; Complete Rest Is Death.
Death
Dying
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.
Vanity
Sea
Curiosity
Human Beings Do Not Know Their Place And Purpose. They Have Fallen From Their True Place, And Lost Their True Purpose. They Search Everywhere For Their Place And Purpose, With Great Anxiety. But They Cannot Find Them Because They Are Surrounded By Darkness.
Anxiety
Darkness
Purpose
He Who Does Not Know His Way To The Sea Should Take A River For His Guide.
Sea
Rivers
Doe
Justice And Truth Are Two Such Subtle Points, That Our Tools Are Too Blunt To Touch Them Accurately.
Stupid
Justice
Tools
What A Chimera Then Is Man. What A Novelty! What A Monster... What A Contradiction, What A Prodigy
Inspiration
Men
Monsters
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.
Sex
Greatness
Men
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.
Advice
Matter
Way
Being Unable To Cure Death, Wretchedness, And Ignorance, Men Have Decided, In Order To Be Happy, Not To Think About Such Things.
Ignorance
Men
Thinking
The Last Function Of Reason Is To Recognize That There Are An Infinity Of Things Which Surpass It.
History
Lasts
Infinity
The Property Of Power Is To Protect.
Power
Protect
Property
In Faith There Is Enough Light For Those Who Want To Believe And Enough Shadows To Blind Those Who Don't.
Life
Faith
Christian
We Know That There Is An Infinite, And We Know Not Its Nature. As We Know It To Be False That Numbers Are Finite, It Is Therefore True That There Is A Numerical Infinity. But We Know Not Of What Kind; It Is Untrue That It Is Even, Untrue That It Is Odd; For The Addition Of A Unit Does Not Change Its Nature; Yet It Is A Number, And Every Number Is Odd Or Even (this Certainly Holds Of Every Finite Number). Thus We May Quite Well Know That There Is A God Without Knowing What He Is.
Change
God
Knowledge
Fear Not, Provided You Fear; But If You Fear Not, Then Fear.
Fear Not
Ifs
To Doubt Is A Misfortune, But To Seek When In Doubt Is An Indispensable Duty. So He Who Doubts And Seeks Not Is At Once Unfortunate And Unfair.
Doubt
Unfair
Duty
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.
Usual
Common
Born
We Must Learn Our Limits. We Are All Something, But None Of Us Are Everything.
Wisdom
Addiction
Limits
We View Things Not Only From Different Sides, But With Different Eyes; We Have No Wish To Find Them Alike.
Eye
Views
Two Sides
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.
Death
Real
Vanity
Excuse Me, Pray." Without That Excuse I Would Not Have Known There Was Anything Amiss.
Apology
Praying
Excuse
Those Who Are Accustomed To Judge By Feeling Do Not Understand The Process Of Reasoning, Because They Want To Comprehend At A Glance And Are Not Used To Seeking For First Principles. Those, On The Other Hand, Who Are Accustomed To Reason From First Principles Do Not Understand Matters Of Feeling At All, Because They Look For First Principles And Are Unable To Comprehend At A Glance.
Math
Hands
Judging
The State Of Man Is Inconstancy, Ennui, Anxiety.
Life
Men
Anxiety
The World Is Satisfied With Words, Few Care To Dive Beneath The Surface.
World
Care
Beneath The Surface
How Can Anyone Lose Who Chooses To Become A Christian? If, When He Dies, There Turns Out To Be No God And His Faith Was In Vain, He Has Lost Nothing...if, However, There Is A God And A Heaven And A Hell. Then He Has Gained Heaven And His Skeptical Friends Have Lost Everything.
Christian
Heaven
Lost Everything
Man's Grandeur Is That He Knows Himself To Be Miserable.
Men
Miserable
Grandeur
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