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

-Blaise Pascal

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Man Is Full Of

Blaise Pascal

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

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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.

When I See The Blind And Wretched State Of Men, When I Survey The Whole Universe In Its Deadness, And Man Left To Himself With No Light, As Though Lost In This Corner Of The Universe Without Knowing Who Put Him There, What He Has To Do, Or What Will Become Of Him When He Dies, Incapable Of Knowing Anything, I Am Moved To Terror, Like A Man Transported In His Sleep To Some Terrifying Desert Island, Who Wakes Up Quite Lost, With No Means Of Escape. Then I Marvel That So Wretched A State Does Not Drive People To Despair.

The World Is Satisfied With Words. Few Appreciate The Things Beneath. [fr., Le Monde Se Paye De Paroles; Peu Approfondissement Les Choses.]

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.

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

The Supreme Function Of Reason Is To Show Man That Some Things Are Beyond Reason.

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.

If There Is A God, He Is Infinitely Incomprehensible, Since, Having, Neither Parts Nor Limits, He Has No Affinity To Us. We Are Then Incapable Of Knowing Either What He Is Or If He Is. [so] You Must Wager. Let Us Weigh The Gain And The Loss In Wagering That God Is. Let Us Estimate These Two Chances. If You Gain, You Gain All; If You Lose, You Lose Nothing. Wager Then Without Hesitation That He Is.

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.

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

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.

Lost Everything

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 World Is Ruled By Force, Not By Opinion; But Opinion Uses Force.

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.

Nature Is An Infinite Sphere Of Which The Center Is Everywhere And The Circumference Nowhere.

Man's Greatness Lies In His Power Of Thought.

Quand On Voit Le Style Naturel, On Est Tout E Tonne Et Ravi, Car On S'attendait De Voir Un Auteur, Et On Trouve Un Homme. When We See A Natural Style We Are Quite Amazed And Delighted, Because We Expected To See An Author And Find A Man.

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.

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

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

The Past And Present Are Only Our Means; The Future Is Always Our End. Thus We Never Really Live, But Only Hope To Live.

I Know Whom I Have Believed.

The Stream Is Always Purer At Its Source.

Let Man Then Contemplate The Whole Of Nature In Her Full And Grand Majesty... No Idea Approaches It. We May Enlarge Our Conceptions Beyond All Imaginable Space; We Only Produce Atoms In Comparison With The Reality Of Things. It Is An Infinite Sphere, The Center Of Which Is Everywhere, The Circumference Nowhere.

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.

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

All Men Seek Happiness. There Are No Exceptions.... This Is The Motive Of Every Act Of Every Man, Including Those Who Go And Hang Themselves.

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

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

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

Il Est Non Seulement Impossible, Mais Inutile De Conna|"tre Dieu Sans Je Sus-christ. It Is Not Only Impossible, But Also Useless To Recognize God Without Jesus.

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

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

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

It Is Certain That The Soul Is Either Mortal Or Immortal. The Decision Of This Question Must Make A Total Difference In The Principles Of Morals. Yet Philosophers Have Arranged Their Moral System Entirely Independent Of This. What An Extraordinary Blindness!

All Mankind's Unhappiness Derives From One Thing: His Inability To Know How To Remain In Repose In One Room.

We Must Know Where To Doubt, Where To Feel Certain, Where To Submit. He Who Does Not Do So, Understands Not The Force Of Reason.

To Find Recreation In Amusement Is Not Happiness.

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

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.

All I Know Is That I Must Soon Die, But What I Know Least Is This Very Death Which I Cannot Escape.

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

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

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

He Who Cannot Believe Is Cursed, For He Reveals By His Unbelief That God Has Not Chosen To Give Him Grace.

The End Point Of Rationality Is To Demonstrate The Limits Of Rationality.

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.

Our Reason Is Always Disappointed By The Inconstancy Of Appearances.

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

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

The Sweetness Of Glory Is So Great That, Join It To What We Will, Even To Death, We Love It.

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.

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.

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

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.

The Origins Of Disputes Between Philosophers Is, That One Class Of Them Have Undertaken To Raise Man By Displaying His Greatness, And The Other To Debase Him By Showing His Miseries.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

To Call A King "prince" Is Pleasing, Because It Diminishes His Rank.

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.

Man Finds Nothing So Intolerable As To Be In A State Of Complete Rest, Without Passions, Without Occupation, Without Diversion, Without Effort. Then He Feels His Nullity, Loneliness, Inadequacy, Dependence, Helplessness, Emptiness.

Nature Confuses The Skeptics And Reason Confutes The Dogmatists

[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.

Faith Indeed Tells What The Senses Do Not Tell, But Not The Contrary Of What They See. It Is Above Them And Not Contrary To Them.

We Are Never In Search Of Things, But Always In Search Of The Search.

God Only Pours Out His Light Into The Mind After Having Subdued The Rebellion Of The Will By An Altogether Heavenly Gentleness Which Charms And Wins It.

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

Something Incomprehensible Is Not For That Reason Less Real.

It Is Not In Montaigne, But In Myself, That I Find All That I See In Him.

No Soul Of High Estate Can Take Pleasure In Slander. It Betrays A Weakness.

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.

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

La Dernie' Re Chose Qu'on Trouve En Faisant Un Ouvrage, Est De Savoir Celle Qu'il Faut Mettre La Premie' Re. The Last Thing One Discovers In Composing A Work Iswhat To Put First.

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

All The Unhappiness Of Men Arises From One Single Fact, That They Cannot Stay Quietly In Their Own Chamber.

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

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

All Our Dignity Lies In Our Thoughts.

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.

Il N'y A Que Deux Sortes D'hommes: Les Uns Justes, Qui Se Croient Pe Cheurs; Les Autres Pe Cheurs, Qui Se Croient Justes. There Are Only Two Types Of People: The Virtuous Who Believe Themselves To Be Sinners And The Sinners Who Believe Themselves To Be Virtuous.

Man's Greatness Is Great In That He Knows Himself Wretched. A Tree Does Not Know Itself Wretched. It Is Then Being Wretched To Know Oneself Wretched; But It Is Being Great To Know That One Is Wretched.

All Our Reasoning Boils Down To Yielding To Sentiment.

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.

The Imagination Disposes Of Everything. It Creates Beauty, Justice, And Happiness, Which Are The Whole Of The World.

If God Exists, Not Seeking God Must Be The Gravest Error Imaginable. If One Decides To Sincerely Seek For God And Doesn't Find God, The Lost Effort Is Negligible In Comparison To What Is At Risk In Not Seeking God In The First Place.

One Of The Greatest Artifices The Devil Uses To Engage Men In Vice And Debauchery, Is To Fasten Names Of Contempt On Certain Virtues, And Thus Fill Weak Souls With A Foolish Fear Of Passing For Scrupulous, Should They Desire To Put Them In Practice.

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

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

Death Itself Is Less Painful When It Comes Upon Us Unawares Than The Bare Contemplation Of It, Even When Danger Is Far Distant.

You Are In The Same Manner Surrounded With A Small Circle Of Persons... Full Of Desire. They Demand Of You The Benefits Of Desire... You Are Therefore Properly The King Of Desire. ...equal In This To The Greatest Kings Of The Earth... It Is Desire That Constitutes Their Power; That Is, The Possession Of Things That Men Covet.

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

Man's True Nature Being Lost, Everything Becomes His Nature; As, His True Good Being Lost, Everything Becomes His Good.

Lost Friendship

Lost Everything

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.

It Is The Conduct Of God, Who Disposes All Things Kindly, To Put Religion Into The Mind By Reason, And Into The Heart By Grace.

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.

Let Man Reawake And Consider What He Is Compared With The Reality Of Things; Regard Himself Lost In This Remote Corner Of Nature; And From The Tiny Cell Where He Lodges, To Wit The Universe, Weigh At Their True Worth Earth, Kingdoms, Towns, Himself. What Is A Man Face To Face With Infinity?

We Know Truth, Not Only By The Reason, But Also By The Heart.

Flies Are So Mighty That They Win Battles, Paralyse Our Minds, Eat Up Our Bodies.

All The Maxims Have Been Written. It Only Remains To Put Them Into Practice.

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

May God Never Abandon Me.

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.

You Always Admire What You Really Don't Understand.

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

Brave Deeds Are Wasted When Hidden.

Everyone, Without Exception, Is Searching For Happiness.

Searching For Happiness

We Know Then The Existence And Nature Of The Finite, Because We Also Are Finite And Have Extension. We Know The Existence Of The Infinite And Are Ignorant Of Its Nature, Because It Has Extension Like Us, But Not Limits Like Us. But We Know Neither The Existence Nor The Nature Of God, Because He Has Neither Extension Nor Limits.

Kind Words Produce Their Own Image In Men's Souls; And A Beautiful Image It Is. They Soothe And Quiet And Comfort The Hearer. They Shame Him Out Of His Sour, Morose, Unkind Feelings. We Have Not Yet Begun To Use Kind Words In Such Abundance As They Ought To Be Used.

When Intuition And Logic Agree, You Are Always Right.

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.

Nothing Is Surer Than That The People Will Be Weak.

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

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

One Must Know Oneself. If This Does Not Serve To Discover Truth, It At Least Serves As A Rule Of Life And There Is Nothing Better.

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.

The Eternal Being Is Forever If He Is At All.

We Sail Within A Vast Sphere, Ever Drifting In Uncertainty, Driven From End To End. When We Think To Attach Ourselves To Any Pointand To Fasten To It, It Wavers And Leaves Us; And If We Follow It, It Eludes Our Grasp, Slips Past Us, And Vanishes For Ever. Nothing Stays For Us.

We Do Not Worry About Being Respected In Towns Through Which We Pass. But If We Are Going To Remain In One For A Certain Time, We Do Worry. How Long Does This Time Have To Be?

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

The Fall Is An Offense To Human Reason, But Once Accepted, It Makes Perfect Sense Of The Human Condition.

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

Losses Are Comparative; Imagination Only Makes Them Of Any Moment.

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.

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.

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

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

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. . . .

If There Is A God

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

Belief Is A Wise Wager. Granted That Faith Cannot Be Proved, What Harm Will Come To You If You Gamble On Its Truth And It Proves False? If You Gain, You Gain All; If You Lose, You Lose Nothing. Wager, Then, Without Hesitation, That He Exists.

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.

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.

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.]

Do Little Things As If They Were Great, Because Of The Majesty Of The Lord Jesus Christ Who Dwells In Thee.

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.

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

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

Civil Wars Are The Greatest Of Evils. They Are Inevitable, If We Wish To Reward Merit, For All Will Say That They Are Meritorious.

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.

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.

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

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.

If They [plato And Aristotle] Wrote About Politics It Was As If To Lay Down Rules For A Madhouse. And If They Pretended To Treat It As Something Really Important It Was Because They Knew That The Madmen They Were Talking To Believed Themselves To Be Kings And Emperors. They Humored These Beliefs In Order To Calm Down Their Madness With As Little Harm As Possible.

I Cannot Forgive Descartes. In All His Philosophy He Would Have Been Quite Willing To Dispense With God. But He Had To Make Him Give A Fillip To Set The World In Motion; Beyond This, He Has No Further Need Of God.

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

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.

Let Each Of Us Examine His Thoughts

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

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

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

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

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.

If You Believe In God You Are At No Disadvantage In This Life, And At Considerable Advantage In The Next. If You Do Not Believe, But Find In The Next That There Was A Next, You Are Most Unfortunate!

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...?

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.

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

When We See An Effect Happen Always In The Same Manner, We Infer That It Takes Place By A Natural Necessity; As, For Instance, That The Sun Will Rise To Morrow; But Nature Often Deceives Us, And Will Not Submit To Its Own Rules.

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

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

What Reason Have Atheists For Saying That We Cannot Rise Again? That What Has Never Been, Should Be, Or That What Has Been, Should Be Again? Is It More Difficult To Come Into Being Than To Return To It.

Eloquence Is The Painting Of Thought.

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

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.

Our Nature Consists In Motion; Complete Rest Is Death.

The Struggle Alone Pleases Us, Not The Victory.

All Of Our Reasoning Ends In Surrender To Feeling.

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

Jesus Was In A Garden, Not Of Delight As The First Adam, In Which He Destroyed Himself And The Whole Human Race, But In One Of Agony, In Which He Saved Himself And The Whole Human Race.

If Ignorance Were Bliss, He'd Be A Blister

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.

Equality Of Possessions Is No Doubt Right, But, As Men Could Not Make Might Obey Right, They Have Made Right Obey Might.

A Jester, A Bad Character.

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

Curiosity Is Only Vanity. We Usually Only Want To Know Something So That We Can Talk About It.

The Gospel To Me Is Simply Irresistible.

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.

Love Has Reasons Which Reason Cannot Understand.

All Men Have Happiness As Their Object: There Is No Exception. However Different The Means They Employ, They All Aim At The Same End.

Mankind Suffers From Two Excesses: To Exclude Reason, And To Live By Nothing But Reason.

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

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

Reason Is The Slow And Torturous Method By Which Those Who Do Not Know The Truth Discover It

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

The Mind Has Its Arrangement; It Proceeds From Principles To Demonstrations. The Heart Has A Different Mode Of Proceeding.

The Strength Of A Man's Virtue Should Not Be Measured By His Special Exertions, But By His Habitual Acts.

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

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.

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.

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

La Chose La Plus Importante A' Toute La Vie Est Le Choix Du Me Tier: Le Hasard En Dispose. The Most Important Thing In Life Is To Choose A Profession: Chance Arranges For That.

Man Is Nothing But Insincerity, Falsehood, And Hypocrisy, Both In Regard To Himself And In Regard To Others. He Does Not Wish That He Should Be Told The Truth, He Shuns Saying It To Others; And All These Moods, So Inconsistent With Justice And Reason, Have Their Roots In His Heart.

Eloquence Is A Painting Of The Thoughts.

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.

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.

The Man Who Knows God But Does Not Know His Own Misery, Becomes Proud. The Man Who Knows His Own Misery But Does Not Know God, Ends In Despair...the Knowledge Of Jesus Christ Constitutes The Middle Course Because In Him We Find Both God And Our Own Misery. Jesus Christ Is Therefore A God Whom We Approach Without Pride, And Before Whom We Humble Ourselves Without Despair.

There Are Two Excesses: To Exclude Reason, To Admit Nothing But Reason. The Supreme Achievement Of Reason Is To Realise That There Is A Limit To Reason. Reason's Last Step Is The Recognition That There Are An Infinite Number Of Things Which Are Beyond It. It Is Merely Feeble If It Does Not Go As Far As To Realise That.

Admiration Spoils All From Infancy.

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