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Mediocrity Makes The Most Of Its Native Possessions.
-Blaise Pascal
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Mediocrity Makes The Most

Blaise Pascal
...
Mediocrity Makes The Most Of Its Native Possessions.

Understanding the Quote: "mediocrity makes the most of its native possessions...."

This quote by Blaise Pascal reflects deeply on the theme of mediocrity. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Mediocrity, Possession, Native, 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 mediocrity and possession. 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
Mediocrity
Possession
Native
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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.
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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.
Memorial Day
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All The Troubles Of Life Come Upon Us Because We Refuse To Sit Quietly For A While Each Day In Our Rooms.
Prayer
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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.
Beauty
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All Mankind's Unhappiness Derives From One Thing: His Inability To Know How To Remain In Repose In One Room.
Inability
Rooms
Unhappiness
All Of Our Miseries Prove Our Greatness. They Are The Miseries Of A Dethroned Monarch.
Greatness
Misery
Prove
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.
Discovery
People
Mind
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.
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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.
Love Is
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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!
Spiritual
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One Has Followed The Other In An Endless Circle, For It Is Certain That As Man's Insight Increases So He Finds Both Wretchedness And Greatness Within Himself. In A Word Man Knows He Is Wretched. Thus He Is Wretched Because He Is So, But He Is Truly Great Because He Knows It.
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The Last Function Of Reason Is To Recognize That There Are An Infinity Of Things Which Surpass It.
History
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Dans Une Grande A" Me Tout Est Grand. In A Great Soul Everything Isgreat.
Soul
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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.
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All Great Amusements Are Dangerous To The Christian Life; But Among All Those Which The World Has Invented There Is None More To Be Feared Than The Theater. It Is A Representation Of The Passions So Natural And So Delicate That It Excites Them And Gives Birth To Them In Our Hearts, And, Above All, To That Of Love.
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The God Of The Infinite Is The God Of The Infinitesimal.
Infinite
All The Dignity Of Man Consists In Thought. Thought Is Therefore By Its Nature A Wonderful And Incomparable Thing. It Must Have Strange Defects To Be Contemptible. But It Has Such, So That Nothing Is More Ridiculous. How Great It Is In Its Nature! How Vile It Is In Its Defects! But What Is This Thought? How Foolish It Is!
Men
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Strange
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
To Have No Time For Philosophy Is To Be A True Philosopher.
Philosophy
Philosopher
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.]
Moving
Rivers
Wish
He Who Cannot Believe Is Cursed, For He Reveals By His Unbelief That God Has Not Chosen To Give Him Grace.
Believe
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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.
Greatness
Men
Tree
If It Is An Extraordinary Blindness To Live Without Investigating What We Are, It Is A Terrible One To Live An Evil Life, While Believing In God
Believe
Evil
Blindness
The Whole Title By Which You Possess Your Property, Is Not A Title Of Nature But Of A Human Institution.
Titles
Institutions
Humans
Imagination Cannot Make Fools Wise, But It Makes Them Happy, As Against Reason, Which Only Makes Its Friends Wretched: One Covers Them With Glory, The Other With Shame.
Wise
Imagination
Fool
It Is Not Shameful For A Man To Succumb To Pain And It Is Shameful To Succumb To Pleasure.
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Men
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It Is Not Good To Be Too Free. It Is Not Good To Have All One Wants.
Freedom
Greed
Want
The Gist Is That Good And Evil Are Foreordained. What Is Foreordained Comes Necessarily To Be After A Prior Act Of Divine Volition...rather, Everything Small And Large Is Written And Comes To Be In A Known And Expected Measure.
Evil
Gist
Divine
The Sole Cause Of Man's Unhappiness Is That He Does Not Know How To Stay Quietly In His Room.
Math
Men
Doe
All That Tends Not To Charity Is Figurative. The Sole Aim Of The Scripture Is Charity.
Charity
Scripture
Sole
Kind Words Do Not Cost Much. Yet They Accomplish Much.
Kindness
Character
Accomplish Nothing
Men Despise Religion. They Hate It And Are Afraid It May Be True.
Fear
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Truth Is So Obscure In These Times, And Falsehood So Established, That, Unless We Love The Truth, We Cannot Know It.
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Few Men Speak Humbly Of Humility, Chastely Of Chastity, Skeptically Of Skepticism.
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Pride
Math
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.
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Men
Two
How Vain Painting Is, Exciting Admiration By Its Resemblance To Things Of Which We Do Not Admire The Originals.
Admiration
Painting
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All I Know Is That I Must Soon Die, But What I Know Least Is This Very Death Which I Cannot Escape.
Death
Knows
Dies
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
Law, Without Force, Is Impotent.
Law
Lawyer
Force
Seeing Too Much To Deny And Too Little To Be Sure, I Am In A State To Be Pitied.
Littles
Too Much
Deny
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.
Philosophical
Writing
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We Run Heedlessly Into The Abyss After Putting Something In Front Of Us To Stop Us From Seeing It.
Running
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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.
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Eloquence Is A Way Of Saying Things In Such A Way, First, That Those To Whom We Speak May Listen To Them Without Pain And With Pleasure, And Second, That They Feel Themselves Interested, So That Self-love Leads Them More Willingly To Reflection Upon It.
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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.
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Passion Cannot Be Beautiful Without Excess; One Either Loves Too Much Or Not Enough.
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Passion
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Men Seek Rest In A Struggle Against Difficulties; And When They Have Conquered These, Rest Becomes Insufferable.
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Men
Anxiety
The Last Proceeding Of Reason Is To Recognize That There Is An Infinity Of Things Which Are Beyond It. There Is Nothing So Conformable To Reason As This Disavowal Of Reason.
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Reason
The Greatness Of Man Is So Evident That It Is Even Proved By His Wretchedness. For What In Animals Is Nature, We Call In Man Wretchedness--by Which We Recognize That, His Nature Being Now Like That Of Animals, He Has Fallen From A Better Nature Which Once Was His.
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Greatness
Men
In Difficult Times Carry Something Beautiful In Your Heart.
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Heart
Difficult Times
Some Vices Only Lay Hold Of Us By Means Of Others, And These, Like Branches, Fall On Removal Of The Trunk.
Fall
Mean
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Symmetry Is What We See At A Glance; Based On The Fact That There Is No Reason For Any Difference.
Differences
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Two Similar Faces, Neither Of Which Alone Causes Laughter, Use Laughter When They Are Together, By Their Resemblance.
Laughter
Two
Together
However Vast A Man's Spiritual Resources, He Is Capable Of But One Great Passion.
Spiritual
Passion
Math
How Hollow Is The Heart Of Man, And How Full Of Excrement!
Heart
Men
Hollow
God Is, Or He Is Not." But To Which Side Shall We Incline? Reason Can Decide Nothing Here. There Is An Infinite Chaos Which Separated Us. A Game Is Being Played At The Extremity Of This Infinite Distance Where Heads Or Tails Will Turn Up. What Will You Wager?
God
Distance
Games
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.
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Men
And Love
Do They Think That They Have Given Us Great Pleasure By Telling Us That They Hold Our Soul To Be No More Than Wind Or Smoke, And Saying It Moreover In Tones Of Pride And Satisfaction? Is This Then Something To Be Said Gaily? Is It Not On The Contrary Something To Be Said Sadly, As Being The Saddest Thing In The World?
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Contradiction Is Not A Sign Of Falsity, Nor The Lack Of Contradiction A Sign Of Truth.
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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.
Queens
Real
Character
The War Existing Between The Senses And Reason.
War
Conflict
Reason
Admiration Spoils All From Infancy.
Admiration
Infancy
Spoil
If You Do Not Love Too Much, You Do Not Love Enough.
Too Much
Enough
Ifs
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.
Death
Fate
Men
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.
Knowledge
Past
Thinking
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
We Desire Truth, And Find Within Ourselves Only Uncertainty. We Seek Happiness, And Find Only Misery And Death. We Cannot But Desire Truth And Happiness, And Are Incapable Of Certainty Or Happiness.
Desire
Misery
Certainty
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.
Mean
Humanity
Majority
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.]
Queens
Use
World
We See Neither Justice Nor Injustice Which Does Not Change Its Nature With Change In Climate. Three Degrees Of Latitude Reverse All Jurisprudence; A Meridian Decides The Truth.
Justice
Climate
Degrees
Dull Minds Are Never Either Intuitive Or Mathematical.
Mind
Dull
Mathematical
Nothing Is More Dastardly Than To Act With Bravado Toward God.
God
Bravery
Cowardice
Imagination Decides Everything.
Inspirational
Teacher
Imagination
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.
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Environmental
And Love
There Should Be In Eloquence That Which Is Pleasing And That Which Is Real; But That Which Is Pleasing Should Itself Be Real.
Real
Being Real
Should
By Space The Universe Encompasses And Swallows Me Up Like An Atom; By Thought I Comprehend The World.
Space
Atoms
World
They Do Not Know That They Seek Only The Chase And Not The Quarry.
Quarry
Knows
When Some Passion Or Effect Is Described In A Natural Style, We Find Within Ourselves The Truth Of What We Hear, Without Knowing It Was There.
Passion
Knowing
Style
One-half Of The Ills Of Life Come Because Men Are Unwilling To Sit Down Quietly For Thirty Minutes To Think Through All The Possible Consequences Of Their Acts.
Spiritual
Men
Thinking
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.
Doctrine
Done
Causes
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.
Beautiful
Meaningful
Kindness
Not Only Do We Know God Through Jesus Christ, We Only Know Ourselves Through Jesus Christ.
Jesus
Christ
Knowing God
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
Men Are So Necessarily Mad, That Not To Be Mad Would Amount To Another Form Of Madness.
Depression
Men
Mad
I Take It As A Matter Not To Be Disputed, That If All Knew What Each Said Of The Other, There Would Not Be Four Friends In The World. This Seems Proved By The Quarrels And Disputes Caused By The Disclosures Which Are Occasionally Made.
Gossip
World
Four
Look For The Truth, It Wants To Be Found.
Looks
Want
Found
Our Nature Lies In Movement; Complete Calm Is Death.
Travel
Lying
Journey
There Are Hardly Any Truths Upon Which We Always Remain Agreed, And Still Fewer Objects Of Pleasure Which We Do Not Change Every Hour, I Do Not Know Whether There Is A Means Of Giving Fixed Rules For Adapting Discourse To The Inconstancy Of Our Caprices.
Mean
Giving
Hours
Too Much Pleasure Disagrees With Us. Too Many Concords Are Annoying In Music; Too Many Benefits Irritate Us; We Wish To Have The Wherewithal To Overpay Our Debts.
Wish
Debt
Benefits
What A Chimera Then Is Man. What A Novelty! What A Monster... What A Contradiction, What A Prodigy
Inspiration
Men
Monsters
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.
Peace
Believe
Men
The More Intelligence One Has, The More People One Finds Original. Commonplace People See No Difference Between Men.
Men
Differences
People
Few Friendships Would Survive If Each One Knew What His Friend Says Of Him Behind His Back.
Friendship
Emotional
Behinds
I Can Readily Conceive Of A Man Without Hands Or Feet; And I Could Conceive Of Him Without A Head, If Experience Had Not Taught Me That By This He Thinks, Thought Then, Is The Essence Of Man, And Without This We Cannot Conceive Of Him.
Men
Thinking
Hands
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.
Atheist
Loss
Knowing
It Is Superstitious To Put One's Hopes In Formalities, But Arrogant To Refuse To Submit To Them.
Arrogant
Ceremony
Submit
Justice Without Force Is Powerless; Force Without Justice Is Tyrannical.
Strength
Umpires
Justice
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
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
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.
Easter
Atheist
Return
The World Is Satisfied With Words. Few Appreciate The Things Beneath. [fr., Le Monde Se Paye De Paroles; Peu Approfondissement Les Choses.]
Appreciate
World
Parole
Curiosity Is Only Vanity. We Usually Only Want To Know Something So That We Can Talk About It.
Pride
Vanity
Curiosity
Justice And Truth Are Two Such Subtle Points, That Our Tools Are Too Blunt To Touch Them Accurately.
Stupid
Justice
Tools
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
Philosophical
Men
Taught
No Soul Of High Estate Can Take Pleasure In Slander. It Betrays A Weakness.
Betrayal
Soul
Weakness
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
We Must Make Good People Wish That The Christian Faith Were True, And Then Show That It Is.
Christian
People
Wish
The Past And Present Are Only Our Means; The Future Is Always Our End. Thus We Never Really Live, But Only Hope To Live.
Mean
Past
Ends
The Heart Has Its Reasons Of Which Reason Knows Nothing. We Feel It In A Thousand Things. I Say That The Heart Naturally Loves The Universal Being, And Naturally Loves Itself; And It Gives Itself To One Or The Other, And Hardens Itself Against One Or The Other, As It Chooses...it Is The Heart That Feels God, Not The Reason; This Is Faith.
Heart
Giving
Reason
Do You Wish People To Think Well Of You? Don't Speak Well Of Yourself.
Humble
Humility
Thinking
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.
Time
Believe
Numbers
For Nature Is An Image Of Grace, And Visible Miracles Are Images Of The Invisible.
Nature
Miracle
Grace
Kind Words Produce Their Images On Men's Souls.
Men
Soul
Kind
Force Rules The World-not Opinion; But It Is Opinion That Makes Use Of Force.
Use
World
Opinion
At The Centre Of Every Human Being Is A God-shaped Vacuum Which Can Only Be Filled By Jesus Christ.
Jesus
Vacuums
Christ
Beauty Is A Harmonious Relation Between Something In Our Nature And The Quality Of The Object Which Delights Us.
Beauty
Nature
Quality
We Conceal It From Ourselves In Vain - We Must Always Love Something. In Those Matters Seemingly Removed From Love, The Feeling Is Secretly To Be Found, And Man Cannot Possibly Live For A Moment Without It.
Love
Wedding
Men
Nature, Which Alone Is Good, Is Wholly Familiar And Common.
Common
Familiar
Vanity Is Illustrated In The Cause And Effect Of Love, As In The Case Of Cleopatra.
Vanity
Causes
Cases
Happiness Can Be Found Neither In Ourselves Nor In External Things, But In God And In Ourselves As United To Him.
Found
United
Little Things Console Us Because Little Things Afflict Us.
Inspirational
Littles
Little Things
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.
Taken
Ignorance
Sadness
What Are Our Natural Principles But Principles Of Custom?
Principles
Natural
Customs
Nothing Is So Intolerable To Man As Being Fully At Rest, Without A Passion, Without Business, Without Entertainment, Without Care.
Business
Passion
Men
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.
Comfort
Found
Console
It Is The Heart Which Perceives God And Not The Reason. That Is What Faith Is: God Perceived By The Heart, Not By The Reason.
God
Heart
Existentialism
Put The World's Greatest Philosopher On A Plank That Is Wider Than Need Be; If There Is A Precipe Below, Although His Reason May Convince Him That He Is Safe, His Imagination Will Prevail.
Imagination
Needs
World
The World Is Satisfied With Words, Few Care To Dive Beneath The Surface.
World
Care
Beneath The Surface
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.
Errors
Effort
Risk
Fuller Believed Human Societies Would Soon Rely Mainly On Renewable Sources Of Energy, Such As Solar- And Wind-derived Electricity,. Envisioned An Age Of "universal Education And Sustenance Of All Humanity". "the Heart Has Reasons That Reason Does Not Understand."
Life
Heart
Wind
Nothing Is So Conformable To Reason As To Disavow Reason.
Reason
Men Often Take Their Imagination For Their Heart; And They Believe They Are Converted As Soon As They Think Of Being Converted.
Believe
Heart
Men
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.
Believe
If There Is A God
God And Life
Time Heals Griefs And Quarrels, For We Change And Are No Longer The Same Persons. Neither The Offender Nor The Offended Are Any More Themselves.
Life
Grief
Offended You
This Is What I See, And What Troubles Me. I Look On All Sides, And Everywhere I See Nothing But Obscurity. Nature Offers Me Nothing That Is Not A Matter Of Doubt And Disquiet.
Doubt
Obscurity
Looks
The End Point Of Rationality Is To Demonstrate The Limits Of Rationality.
Thinking
Limits
Ends
The Gospel To Me Is Simply Irresistible.
Irresistible
The Weakness Of Human Reason Appears More Evidently In Those Who Know It Not Than In Those Who Know It.
Weakness
Reason
Humans
The Two Principles Of Truth, Reason And Senses, Are Not Only Both Not Genuine, But Are Engaged In Mutual Deception. The Senses Deceive Reason Through False Appearances, And The Senses Are Disturbed By Passions, Which Produce False Impressions.
Passion
Two
Deception
Do Little Things As If They Were Great, Because Of The Majesty Of The Lord Jesus Christ Who Dwells In Thee.
Jesus
Deeds
Littles
In Order To Enter Into A Real Knowledge Of Your Condition, Consider It In This Image: A Man Was Cast By A Tempest Upon An Unknown Island, The Inhabitants Of Which Were In Trouble To Find Their King, Who Was Lost; And Having A Strong Resemblance Both In Form And Face To This King, He Was Taken For Him, And Acknowledged In This Capacity By All The People.
Strong
Kings
Real
We Have An Idea Of Truth, Invincible To All Scepticism.
Truth
Ideas
Invincible
Continued Eloquence Is Wearisome.
Eloquence
The Sensitivity Of Men To Small Matters, And Their Indifference To Great Ones, Indicates A Strange Inversion.
Men
Matter
Strange
It Is The Heart Which Perceives God And Not The Reason.
Heart
Math
Reason
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
If Ignorance Were Bliss, He'd Be A Blister
Ignorance
Bliss
Blisters
Chess Is The Gymnasium Of The Mind.
Mind
Chess
Gymnasiums
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.
Tired
May
Arms
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.
Fall
Greatness
Space
Il N'est Pas Certain Que Tout Soit Incertain. (translation: It Is Not Certain That Everything Is Uncertain.)
Uncertain
Certain
Translations
We Run Carelessly To The Precipice, After We Have Put Something Before Us To Prevent Us Seeing It.
Running
Aging
Precipice
The Fall Is An Offense To Human Reason, But Once Accepted, It Makes Perfect Sense Of The Human Condition.
Fall
Perfect
Reason
Condition De L'homme: Inconstance, Ennui, Inquie Tude. Man's Condition. Inconstancy, Boredom, Anxiety.
Men
Boredom
Anxiety
I Can Approve Of Those Only Who Seek In Tears For Happiness.
Tears
I Can
Our Own Interests Are Still An Exquisite Means For Dazzling Our Eyes Agreeably.
Mean
Eye
Interest
There Is A God-shaped Hole In The Life Of Every Man.
Men
Holes
Every Man
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.
Life
Heart
Perfect
Wisdom Leads Us Back To Childhood.
Childhood
You Corrupt Religion Either In Favour Of Your Friends, Or Against Your Enemies.
Enemy
Religion
Favour
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.
Happiness
Men
Occupation
Who Knows If This Other Half Of Life Where We Think We're Awake Is Not Another Sleep A Little Different From The First.
Sleep
Thinking
Different
It Is Incomprehensible That God Should Exist, And It Is Incomprehensible That He Should Not Exist.
Should
The Stream Is Always Purer At Its Source.
Purity
Source
Streams
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.
Humble
Understanding
Monsters
There Is A Lot Of Difference Between Tempting And Leading Into Error. God Tempts But Does Not Lead Into Error. To Tempt Is To Provide Opportunities For Us To Do Certain Things If We Do Not Love God, But Putting Us Under No Necessity To Do So. To Lead Into Error Is To Compel A Man Necessarily To Conclude And Follow A Falsehood.
Opportunity
Men
Errors
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
The Captain Of A Ship Is Not Chosen From Those Of The Passengers Who Comes From The Best Family.
Politics
Captains
Ships
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.
Running
Ignorance
Knowledge
If Man Were Happy, He Would Be The More So, The Less He Was Diverted, Like The Saints And God.
Happiness
God
Men
The Mind Has Its Arrangement; It Proceeds From Principles To Demonstrations. The Heart Has A Different Mode Of Proceeding.
Heart
Mind
Principles
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.
Art
Healing
Squares
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.
World
Erring
Imitation
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
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.
Beautiful
Uplifting
Kindness
He Who Does Not Know His Way To The Sea Should Take A River For His Guide.
Sea
Rivers
Doe
And Is It Not Obvious That, Just As It Is A Crime To Disturb The Peace When Truth Reigns, It Is Also A Crime To Remain At Peace When The Truth Is Being Destroyed?
Reign
Truth Is
Crime
Great And Small Suffer The Same Mishaps.
Greatness
Suffering
Mishaps
Continuity In Everything Is Unpleasant.
Change
Continuity
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
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.
Crush
Men
Thinking
All Our Dignity Lies In Our Thoughts.
Lying
Dignity
Our Thoughts
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
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?
Men
Doe
Different
What Amazes Me Most Is To See That Everyone Is Not Amazed At His Own Weakness.
Weakness
Amazed
We Make An Idol Of Truth Itself; For Truth Apart From Charity Is Not God, But His Image And Idol, Which We Must Neither Love Nor Worship.
Love
Idols
Age
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.
Time
Ignorance
Knowledge
All Mankind's Troubles Are Caused By One Single Thing, Which Is Their Inability To Sit Quietly.
Life
Inability
Trouble
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?
Reality
Men
Cells
It Is Not Our Task To Secure The Triumph Of Truth, But Merely To Fight On Its Behalf.
Truth
Responsibility
Fighting
Bless Yourself With Holy Water, Have Masses Said, And So On; By A Simple And Natural Process This Will Make You Believe, And Will Dull You - Will Quiet Your Proudly Critical Intellect.
Believe
Simple
Water
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.
Christian
Men
Doctrine
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
All Err The More Dangerously Because Each Follows A Truth. Their Mistake Lies Not In Following A Falsehood But In Not Following Another Truth.
Mistake
Lying
Math
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.
Sports
Men
Play
People Almost Invariably Arrive At Their Beliefs Not On The Basis Of Proof But On The Basis Of What They Find Attractive.
People
Belief
Attractive
Man Is So Made That By Continually Telling Him He Is A Fool He Believes It, And By Continually Telling It To Himself He Makes Himself Believe It. For Man Holds An Inward Talk With Himself, Which It Pays Him To Regulate.
Believe
Men
Inward
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.
Divinity
Bears
Earth
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.
Views
Sides
Argument
We Are Only Falsehood, Duplicity, Contradiction; We Both Conceal And Disguise Ourselves From Ourselves.
Lying
Duplicity
Dishonesty
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