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The Authority Of Reason Is Far More Imperious Than That Of A Master; For He Who Disobeys The One Is Unhappy, But He Who Disobeys The Other Is A Fool.
-Blaise Pascal
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The Authority Of Reason

Blaise Pascal
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The Authority Of Reason Is Far More Imperious Than That Of A Master; For He Who Disobeys The One Is Unhappy, But He Who Disobeys The Other Is A Fool.

Understanding the Quote: "the authority of reason is far more imperious than that of a..."

This quote by Blaise Pascal reflects deeply on the theme of unhappy. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Unhappy, Fool, Reason, 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 unhappy and fool. 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
Unhappy
Fool
Reason
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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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All Of Our Miseries Prove Our Greatness. They Are The Miseries Of A Dethroned Monarch.
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The World Is Ruled By Force, Not By Opinion; But Opinion Uses Force.
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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
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Instinct Teaches Us To Look For Happiness Outside Ourselves.
Looks
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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
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Two Things Control Men's Nature, Instinct And Experience.
Nature
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Two
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.
Two
Numbers
Achievement
Notwithstanding The Sight Of All Our Miseries, Which Press Upon Us And Take Us By The Throat, We Have An Instinct Which We Cannot Repress, And Which Lifts Us Up.
Sight
Misery
Instinct
What A Chimera Then Is Man. What A Novelty! What A Monster... What A Contradiction, What A Prodigy
Inspiration
Men
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By Thought I Embrace The Universe.
Embrace
Universe
He Who Cannot Believe Is Cursed, For He Reveals By His Unbelief That God Has Not Chosen To Give Him Grace.
Believe
Giving
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The Statements Of Atheists Ought To Be Perfectly Clear Of Doubt. Now It Is Not Perfectly Clear That The Soul Is Material.
Atheist
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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.
Jesus
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Kind Words Do Not Cost Much. Yet They Accomplish Much.
Kindness
Character
Accomplish Nothing
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
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.
Loneliness
Passion
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The Married Should Not Forget That To Speak Of Love Begets Love.
Marriage
Love 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.
Law
Imagination
Earth
The Weakness Of Human Reason Appears More Evidently In Those Who Know It Not Than In Those Who Know It.
Weakness
Reason
Humans
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
Heart
Pascal
Reason
Men Are So Necessarily Mad, That Not To Be Mad Would Amount To Another Form Of Madness.
Depression
Men
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No Soul Of High Estate Can Take Pleasure In Slander. It Betrays A Weakness.
Betrayal
Soul
Weakness
You Always Admire What You Really Don't Understand.
Inspirational
Fake People
Appreciation
The Majority Is The Best Way, Because It Is Visible, And Has Strength To Make Itself Obeyed. Yet It Is The Opinion Of The Least Able.
Democracy
Majority
Able
Reason Is The Slow And Torturous Method By Which Those Who Do Not Know The Truth Discover It
Reason
Method
Knows
We Are Usually Convinced More Easily By Reasons We Have Found Ourselves Than By Those Which Have Occurred To Others.
Freedom
Democracy
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Which Is The More Believable Of The Two, Moses Or China?
Two
Religion
Moses
We View Things Not Only From Different Sides, But With Different Eyes; We Have No Wish To Find Them Alike.
Eye
Views
Two Sides
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
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
Continuous Eloquence Is Tedious.
Teaching
Eloquence
Tedious
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.
Jesus
Humble
Pride
Not Only Do We Know God By Jesus Christ Alone, But We Know Ourselves Only By Jesus Christ. We Know Life And Death Only Through Jesus Christ. Apart From Jesus Christ, We Do Not Know What Is Our Life, Nor Our Death, Nor God, Nor Ourselves.
Christian
Jesus
Life And Death
There Would Be Too Great Darkness, If Truth Had Not Visible Signs.
Truth
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Would Be
Habit Is A Second Nature, Which Destroys The First.
Nature
Firsts
Habit
That We Must Love One God Only Is A Thing So Evident That It Does Not Require Miracles To Prove It.
Miracle
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Prove It
All Man's Troubles Come From Not Knowing How To Sit Still In One Room.
Blessing
Men
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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
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.
Pain
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All Men Seek Happiness. This Is Without Exception. Whatever Different Means They Employ, They All Tend To This End. The Cause Of Some Going To War, And Of Others Avoiding It, Is The Same Desire In Both, Attended With Different Views. The Will Never Takes The Least Step But To This Object. This Is The Motive Of Every Action Of Every Man, Even Of Those Who Hang Themselves.
Happiness
War
Mean
The Property Of Power Is To Protect.
Power
Protect
Property
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.
Struggle
Blessing
Boredom
We Are So Presumptuous That We Wish To Be Known To All The World, Even To Those Who Come After Us; And We Are So Vain That The Esteem Of Five Or Six Persons Immediately Around Us Is Enough To Amuse And Satisfy Us.
Vanity
Wish
World
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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Order
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Nature, Which Alone Is Good, Is Wholly Familiar And Common.
Common
Familiar
Faith Is A Sounder Guide Than Reason. Reason Can Only Go So Far, But Faith Has No Limits.
Faith
Limits
Reason
It Is Not Our Task To Secure The Triumph Of Truth, But Merely To Fight On Its Behalf.
Truth
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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
Two Similar Faces, Neither Of Which Alone Causes Laughter, Use Laughter When They Are Together, By Their Resemblance.
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Two
Together
It Is Incomprehensible That God Should Exist, And It Is Incomprehensible That He Should Not Exist.
Should
The More Intelligent A Man Is, The More Originality He Discovers In Others.
Intelligent
Men
Originality
All Human Evil Comes From A Single Cause, Man's Inability To Sit Still In A Room.
Men
Evil
Inability
If I Had More Time I Would Write A Shorter Letter.
Inspirational
Writing
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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
Chance Gives Rise To Thoughts, And Chance Removes Them; No Art Can Keep Or Acquire Them.
Art
Destiny
Giving
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.
Confusion
Unity
Tyranny
Those We Call The Ancients Were Really New In Everything.
I Maintain That, If Everyone Knew What Others Said About Him, There Would Not Be Four Friends In The World.
Friendship
Gossip
World
Amusement That Is Excessive And Followed Only For Its Own Sake, Allures And Deceives Us.
Amusement
Sake
Deceiving
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.
Men
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Style
That Dog Is Mine Said Those Poor Children; That Place In The Sun Is Mine; Such Is The Beginning And Type Of Usurpation Throughout The Earth. [fr., Ce Chien Est A Moi, Disaient Ces Pauvres Enfants; C'est La Ma Place Au Soleil. Voila Le Commencement Et L'image De L'usurpation De Toute La Terre.]
Dog
Children
Earth
When A Soldier Complains Of His Hard Life (or A Labourer, Etc.) Try Giving Him Nothing To Do.
Giving
Soldier
Hard Life
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!
Journey
Sea
Battle
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?
Time
Math
Long
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.
Greatness
Two
Knowing
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.
Men
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Thinking Too Little About Things Or Thinking Too Much Both Make Us Obstinate And Fanatical.
Thinking
Littles
Too Much
Most Of Man's Trouble Comes From His Inability To Be Still.
Men
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Trouble
Philosophers.-we Are Full Of Things Which Take Us Out Of Ourselves.
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Each Man Is Everything To Himself, For With His Death Everything Is Dead For Him. That Is Why Each Of Us Thinks He Is Everything To Everyone. We Must Not Judge Nature By Ourselves, But By Its Own Standards.
Men
Thinking
Judging
You Corrupt Religion Either In Favour Of Your Friends, Or Against Your Enemies.
Enemy
Religion
Favour
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.
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Lost Friendship
Nature Has Made All Her Truths Independent Of One Another. Our Art Makes One Dependent On The Other. But This Is Not Natural. Each Keeps Its Own Place.
Art
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Our Reason Is Always Disappointed By The Inconstancy Of Appearances.
Appearance
Reason
Inconstancy
Nobody Is Publicly Accepted As An Expert On Poetry Unless He Displays The Sign Of Poet, Mathematician, Etc., But Universal Men Want No Sign And Make Hardly Any Distinction Between The Crafts Of Poet And Embroiderer. Universal Men Are Not Called Poets Or Mathematicians, Etc. But They Are All These Things And Judges Of Them Too. No One Could Guess What They Are, And They Will Talk About Whatever Was Being Talked About When They Came In. One Quality Is Not More Noticeable In Them Than Another, Unless It Becomes Necessary To Put It Into Practice, And Then We Remember It.
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Good Deeds, When Concealed, Are The Most Admirable.
Deeds
Good Deeds
Admirable
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 Must Know Where To Doubt, Where To Feel Certain, Where To Submit. He Who Does Not Do So, Understands Not The Force Of Reason.
Doubt
Doe
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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
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Desire
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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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
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It Is Right That What Is Just Should Be Obeyed. It Is Necessary That What Is Strongest Should Be Obeyed.
Obedience
Should
Strongest
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.
Knowledge
Sight
World
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.
Men
Race
Progress
To Have No Time For Philosophy Is To Be A True Philosopher.
Philosophy
Philosopher
Opinion Is, As It Were, The Queen Of The World, But Force Is Its Tyrant.
Queens
Tyrants
World
Vanity Is So Secure In The Heart Of Man That Everyone Wants To Be Admired: Even I Who Write This, And You Who Read This.
Writing
Heart
Men
Nothing Is Thoroughly Approved But Mediocrity. The Majority Has Established This, And It Fixes Its Fangs On Whatever Gets Beyond It Either Way.
Majority
Mediocrity
Way
What Part Of Us Feels Pleasure? Is It Our Hand, Our Arm, Our Flesh, Or Our Blood? It Must Obviously Be Something Immaterial.
Blood
Hands
Flesh
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.
Spiritual
Pain
Order
The Last Thing That We Find In Making A Book Is To Know What We Must Put First.
Book
Lasts
Firsts
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
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
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.
Religious
Believe
Doe
Dull Minds Are Never Either Intuitive Or Mathematical.
Mind
Dull
Mathematical
Nothing Is So Conformable To Reason As To Disavow Reason.
Reason
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
It Is Your Own Assent To Yourself, And The Constant Voice Of Your Own Reason, And Not Of Others, That Should Make You Believe.
Believe
Voice
Belief
Wisdom Leads Us Back To Childhood.
Childhood
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.
Believe
Heart
Men
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
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.
Dream
Sleep
Men
Man Is To Himself The Most Wonderful Object In Nature; For He Cannot Conceive What The Body Is, Still Less What The Mind Is, And Least Of All How A Body Should Be United To A Mind. This Is The Consummation Of His Difficulties, And Yet It Is His Very Being.
Men
Mind
Body
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.
Kings
Tyrants
Roi
There Was Once In Man A True Happiness Of Which There Now Remain To Him Only The Mark And Empty Trace, Which He In Vain Tries To Fill From All His Surroundings, Seeking From Things Absent The Help He Does Not Obtain In Things Present.
Happiness
Men
Trying
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
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.
Two
Understanding
Soul
Men Never Do Evil So Completely And Cheerfully As When They Do It From Religious Conviction.
Inspirational
Sad
Religious
The Eternal Silence Of These Infinite Spaces Frightens Me.
Science
Space
Silence
Those Who Are Clever In Imagination Are Far More Pleased With Themselves Than Prudent Men Could Reasonably Be.
Clever
Men
Imagination
All The Good Maxims Which Are In The World Fail When Applied To One's Self.
Self
World
Failing
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
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
Man Is So Made That If He Is Told Often Enough That He Is A Fool He Believes It.
Believe
Men
Fool
Reason Commands Us Far More Imperiously Than A Master; For In Disobeying The One We Are Unfortunate, And In Disobeying The Other We Are Fools.
Wisdom
Intelligence
Fool
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
Man's Greatness Lies In His Power Of Thought.
Lying
Power
Greatness
Those Are Weaklings Who Know The Truth And Uphold It As Long As It Suits Their Purpose, And Then Abandon It.
Truth
Long
Purpose
Imagination Decides Everything.
Inspirational
Teacher
Imagination
When Intuition And Logic Agree, You Are Always Right.
Math
Intuition
Logic
Evil Is Easily Discovered; There Is An Infinite Variety; Good Is Almost Unique. But Some Kinds Of Evil Are Almost As Difficult To Discover As That Which We Call Good; And Often Particular Evil Of This Class Passes For Good. It Needs Even A Certain Greatness Of Soul To Attain To This, As To That Which Is Good.
Unique
Greatness
Class
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.
Winning
Light
Mind
What Are Our Natural Principles But Principles Of Custom?
Principles
Natural
Customs
Most Of The Evils Of Life Arise From Man's Being Unable To Sit Still In A Room.
Men
Evil
Rooms
I Would Inquire Of Reasonable Persons Whether This Principle: Matter Is Naturally Wholly Incapable Of Thought, And This Other: I Think, Therefore I Am, Are In Fact The Same In The Mind Of Descartes, And In That Of St. Augustine, Who Said The Same Thing Twelve Hundred Years Before.
Thinking
Years
Mind
From Whence Comes It That A Cripple In Body Does Not Irritate Us, And That A Crippled Mind Enrages Us? It Is Because A Cripple Sees That We Go Right, And A Distorted Mind Says That It Is We Who Go Astray. But For That We Should Have More Pity And Less Rage.
Should Have
Mind
Doe
The Philosophers Talk To You About The Dignity Of Man, And They Tempt You To Pride, Or They Talk To You About The Misery Of Man, And They Tempt You To Despair.
Pride
Men
Despair
Silence. All Human Unhappiness Comes From Not Knowing How To Stay Quietly In A Room.
Happiness
Knowing
Silence
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.
Science
Thinking
Way
All This Visible World Is But An Imperceptible Point In The Ample Bosom Of Nature.
Nature
World
Visible
Muhammad Established A Religion By Putting His Enemies To Death; Jesus Christ By Commanding His Followers To Lay Down Their Lives.
Jesus
Enemy
Islam
In Faith There Is Enough Light For Those Who Want To Believe And Enough Shadows To Blind Those Who Don't.
Life
Faith
Christian
Our Own Interests Are Still An Exquisite Means For Dazzling Our Eyes Agreeably.
Mean
Eye
Interest
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.
Love
Christian
Passion
When Malice Has Reason On Its Side, It Looks Forth Bravely, And Displays That Reason In All Its Luster. When Austerity And Self-denial Have Not Realized True Happiness, And The Soul Returns To The Dictates Of Nature, The Reaction Is Fearfully Extravagant.
Self
Soul
Austerity
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
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
The Gospel To Me Is Simply Irresistible.
Irresistible
A Little Thing Comforts Us Because A Little Thing Afflicts Us.
Comfort
Littles
Little Things
There Are Vices Which Have No Hold Upon Us, But In Connection With Others; And Which, When You Cut Down The Trunk, Fall Like The Branches.
Fall
Cutting
Vices
All The Miseries Of Mankind Come From One Thing, Not Knowing How To Remain Alone.
Knowing
Misery
Mankind
We Have So Exalted A Notion Of The Human Soul That We Cannot Bear To Be Despised, Or Even Not To Be Esteemed By It. Man, In Fact, Places All His Happiness In This Esteem.
Respect
Men
Soul
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
Beauty Is A Harmonious Relation Between Something In Our Nature And The Quality Of The Object Which Delights Us.
Beauty
Nature
Quality
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
Religion Is So Great A Thing That It Is Right That Those Who Will Not Take The Trouble To Seek It If It Be Obscure, Should Be Deprived Of It.
Math
Religion
Trouble
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.
Inspirational
Being Yourself
Discovery
I Should Not Be A Christian But For The Miracles.
Christian
Miracle
Should
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
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
Christianity Is Strange. It Bids Man Recognise That He Is Vile, Even Abominable, And Bids Him Desire To Be Like God. Without Such A Counterpoise, This Dignity Would Make Him Horribly Vain, Or This Humiliation Would Make Him Terribly Abject.
Men
Desire
Strange
Eloquence Is The Painting Of Thought.
Painting
Eloquence
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
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
Happiness Can Be Found Neither In Ourselves Nor In External Things, But In God And In Ourselves As United To Him.
Found
United
It Is Not Only Old And Early Impressions That Deceive Us; The Charms Of Novelty Have The Same Power.
Deception
Novelty
Deceiving
Rivers Are Highways That Move On And Bear Us Whither We Wish To Go.
Moving
Rivers
Wish
Vanity Is Illustrated In The Cause And Effect Of Love, As In The Case Of Cleopatra.
Vanity
Causes
Cases
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
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.
Thinking
Reflection
Imagination
To Call A King "prince" Is Pleasing, Because It Diminishes His Rank.
Kings
Diminish
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
Since We Cannot Know All That There Is To Be Known About Anything, We Ought To Know A Little About Everything.
Knowledge
Science
Littles
The Multitude Which Does Not Reduce Itself To Unity Is Confusion.
Confusion
Confusing
Unity
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.
Greatness
Men
Self
Our Achievements Of Today Are But The Sum Total Of Our Thoughts Of Yesterday. You Are Today Where The Thoughts Of Yesterday Have Brought You And You Will Be Tomorrow Where The Thoughts Of Today Take You.
Wise
Yesterday
Achievement
Having Been Unable To Strengthen Justice, We Have Justified Strength.
Justice
Justified
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
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
Since [man] Is Infinitely Removed From Comprehending The Extremes, The End Of Things And Their Beginning Are Hopelessly Hidden From Him In An Impenetrable Secret; He Is Equally Incapable Of Seeing The Nothing From Which He Was Made, And The Infinite In Which He Is Swallowed Up.
Knowledge
Men
Secret
Now, If The Passions Had No Hold On Us, A Week And A Hundred Years Would Amount To The Same.
Time
Passion
Years
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.
Life
Time
Nature
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.
Doe
God Exists
Ifs
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.
Work
Distance
Math
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
Those Who Make Antitheses By Forcing The Sense Are Like Men Who Make False Windows For The Sake Of Symmetry. Their Rule Is Not To Speak Justly, But To Make Accurate Figures.
Men
Style
Sake
The Only Thing Which Consoles For Our Miseries Is Diversion, And Yet This Is The Greatest Of Our Miseries. For It Is This Which Principally Hinders Us From Reflecting Upon Ourselves And Which Makes Us Imperceptibly Ruin Ourselves.
Sadness
Reflecting Upon
Ruins
Nature Confuses The Skeptics And Reason Confutes The Dogmatists
Nature
Reason
Skeptic
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.
Math
Vanity
People
The Eternal Being Is Forever If He Is At All.
God
Forever
Eternal
To Find Recreation In Amusement Is Not Happiness.
Happiness
Greatest Love
Amusement
Can Anything Be Stupider Than That A Man Has The Right To Kill Me Because He Lives On The Other Side Of A River And His Ruler Has A Quarrel With Mine, Though I Have Not Quarrelled With Him?
Peace
Men
Rivers
All Evil Stems From This-that We Do. Know How To Handle Your Solitude.
Evil
Solitude
Stem
Those Great Efforts Of Intellect, Upon Which The Mind Sometimes Touches, Are Such That It Cannot Maintain Itself There. It Only Leaps To Them, Not As Upon A Throne, Forever, But Merely For An Instant.
Effort
Forever
Intelligence
It Is Not Good To Be Too Free. It Is Not Good To Have All One Wants.
Freedom
Greed
Want
Men Despise Religion. They Hate It And Are Afraid It May Be True.
Fear
Hate
Men
Once Your Soul Has Been Enlarged By A Truth, It Can Never Return To Its Original Size.
Truth
Soul
Investing
Eloquence Is A Painting Of The Thoughts.
Painting
Eloquence
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.
Christian
Men
Two
Flies Are So Mighty That They Win Battles, Paralyse Our Minds, Eat Up Our Bodies.
Science
Winning
Mind
When We Are In Love We Seem To Ourselves Quite Different From What We Were Before.
Love
Inspiring
Inspirational Life
Brave Deeds Are Wasted When Hidden.
Brave
Deeds
We Have An Idea Of Truth, Invincible To All Scepticism.
Truth
Ideas
Invincible
Ugly Deeds Are Most Estimable When Hidden.
Deeds
Ugly
Goodness
All Men's Miseries Derive From Not Being Able To Sit In A Quiet Room Alone.
Inspirational
Peace
Hipster
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.
Men
Fool
Doe
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!
Independent
Differences
Decision
The Only Shame Is To Have None.
Guilt
Shame
Perfect Clarity Would Profit The Intellect But Damage The Will.
Math
Perfect
Damage
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