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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.

-Blaise Pascal

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Those Great Efforts Of

Blaise Pascal

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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.

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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.

There Are Two Types Of Mind . . . The Mathematical, And What Might Be Called The Intuitive. The Former Arrives At Its Views Slowly, But They Are Firm And Rigid; The Latter Is Endowed With Greater Flexibility And Applies Itself Simultaneously To The Diverse Lovable Parts Of That Which It Loves.

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

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.

Words Differently Arranged Have A Different Meaning, And Meanings Differently Arranged Have Different Effects.

Different Meanings

Reason's Last Step Is To Acknowledge That There Are Infinitely Many Things Beyond It.

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!

The Last Thing We Decide In Writing A Book Is What To Put First.

We Are Fools To Depend Upon The Society Of Our Fellow-men. Wretched As We Are, Powerless As We Are, They Will Not Aid Us; We Shall Die Alone.

There Are Two Equally Dangerous Extremes-to Shut Reason Out, And To Let Nothing Else In.

If Man Were Happy, He Would Be The More So, The Less He Was Diverted, Like The Saints And God.

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

Thinking Too Little About Things Or Thinking Too Much Both Make Us Obstinate And Fanatical.

If You Want To Be A Real Seeker Of Truth, You Need To, At Least Once In Your Lifetime, Doubt In, As Much As It's Possible, In Everything.

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.

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

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

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...?

We Know The Truth Not Only Through Our Reason But Also Through Our Heart. It Is Through The Latter That We Know First Principles, And Reason, Which Has Nothing To Do With It, Tries In Vain To Refute Them.

If Man Should Commence By Studying Himself, He Would See How Impossible It Is To Go Further.

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

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.]

When A Soldier Complains Of His Hard Life (or A Labourer, Etc.) Try Giving Him Nothing To Do.

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.

Continuity In Everything Is Unpleasant.

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

Each One Is All In All To Himself; For Being Dead, All Is Dead To Him.

Knowing God Without Knowing Our Own Wretchedness Makes For Pride. Knowing Our Own Wretchedness Without Knowing God Makes For Despair. Knowing Jesus Christ Strikes The Balance Because He Shows Us Both God And Our Own Wretchedness.

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

We Only Consult The Ear Because The Heart Is Wanting.

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.

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

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

To Scorn Philosophy Is Truly To Philosophize.

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.

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

What Are Our Natural Principles But Principles Of Custom?

It Is Not Good To Be Too Free. It Is Not Good To Have All One Wants.

Vanity Is Illustrated In The Cause And Effect Of Love, As In The Case Of Cleopatra.

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.

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

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.

There Are Plenty Of Maxims In The World; All That Remains Is To Apply Them.

All That Remains

Look For The Truth, It Wants To Be Found.

Eloquence; It Requires The Pleasant And The Real; But The Pleasant Must Itself Be Drawn From The True.

Distraction Is The Only Thing That Consoles Us For Our Miseries. Yet It Is Itself The Greatest Of Our Miseries.

Being Unable To Cure Death, Wretchedness, And Ignorance, Men Have Decided, In Order To Be Happy, Not To Think About Such Things.

Since We Cannot Be Universal And Know All That Is To Be Known Of Everything, We Ought To Know A Little About Everything. For It Is Far Better To Know Something About Everything Than To Know All About One Thing. This Universality Is The Best. If We Can Have Both, Still Better; But If We Must Choose, We Ought To Choose The Former.

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

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.

Opinion Is The Queen Of The World.

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.

Amusement Allures And Deceives Us And Leads Us Down Imperceptibly In Thoughtlessness To The Grave

Man's Greatness Lies In His Power Of Thought.

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

We Do Not Rest Satisfied With The Present.... So Imprudent We Are That We Wander In The Times Which Are Not Ours And Do Not Thinkof The Only One Which Belongs To Us; And So Idle Are We That We Dream Of Those Times Which Are No More And Thoughtlessly Overlook That Which Alone Exists. For The Present Is Generally Painful To Us.

The Eternal Being Is Forever If He Is At All.

Nothing Is So Intolerable To Man As Being Fully At Rest, Without Passion, Without Business, Without Entertainment, Without Care. It Is Then That He Recognizes That He Is Empty, Insufficient, Dependent, Ineffectual. From The Depths Of His Soul Now Comes At Once Boredom, Gloom, Sorrow, Chagrin, Resentment And Despair.

The More Intelligent A Man Is, The More Originality He Discovers In Others.

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.

There Would Be Too Great Darkness, If Truth Had Not Visible Signs.

Nothing Gives Rest But The Sincere Search For Truth.

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 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.

The Art Of Revolutionizing And Overturning States Is To Undermine Established Customs, By Going Back To Their Origin, In Order To Mark Their Want Of Justice.

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

Ugly Deeds Are Most Estimable When Hidden.

Seeing Too Much To Deny And Too Little To Be Sure, I Am In A State To Be Pitied.

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.

A Man Does Not Show His Greatness By Being At One Extremity, But Rather By Touching Both At Once.

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

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.

The Weather And My Mood Have Little Connection. I Have My Foggy And My Fine Days Within Me; My Prosperity Or Misfortune Has Little To Do With The Matter.

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.

Love Has No Age As It Is Always Renewing Itself.

Wedding Anniversary

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

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

L'homme N'est Ni Ange Ni Be" Te, Et Le Malheur Veut Que Qui Veut Faire L'ange Fait La Be" Te. Man Is Neither Angel Nor Beast.unfortunately, He Who Wants To Act The Angel Often Acts The Beast.

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.

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.

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

How Vain Painting Is, Exciting Admiration By Its Resemblance To Things Of Which We Do Not Admire The Originals.

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.

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

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.

Quelque E Tendue D'esprit Que L'on Ait, L'on N'est Capable Que D'une Grande Passion. However Vast A Man's Spirit, He Is Only Capable Of One Great Passion.

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.

Caesar Was Too Old, It Seems To Me, To Go Off And Amuse Himself Conquering The World. Such A Pastime Was All Right For Augustus And Alexander; They Were Young Men, Not Easily Held In Check, But Caesar Ought To Have Been More Mature.

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

If We Examine Our Thoughts, We Shall Find Them Always Occupied With The Past Or The Future.

Either God Exists Or He Doesn't. Either I Believe In God Or I Don't. Of The Four Possibilities, Only One Is To My Disadvantage. To Avoid That Possibility, I Believe In God.

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

Man Is Clearly Made To Think. It Is His Whole Dignity And His Whole Merit; And His Whole Duty Is To Think As He Ought. And The Order Of Thought Is To Begin With Ourselves, And With Our Author And Our End.

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

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.

Kind Words Do Not Cost Much. Yet They Accomplish Much.

Accomplish Nothing

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.

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

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

May God Never Abandon Me.

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

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

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

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

Condition De L'homme: Inconstance, Ennui, Inquie Tude. Man's Condition. Inconstancy, Boredom, Anxiety.

The Struggle Alone Pleases Us, Not The Victory.

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

Vanity Is But The Surface.

The War Existing Between The Senses And Reason.

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

Any Unity Which Doesn't Have Its Origin In The Multitudes Is Tyranny.

Things Have Different Qualities, And The Soul Different Inclinations; For Nothing Is Simple Which Is Presented To The Soul, And The Soul Never Presents Itself Simply To Any Object. Hence It Comes That We Weep And Laugh At The Same Thing.

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.

Le Silence Est La Plus Grande Perse Cution: Jamais Les Saints Ne Se Sont Tus. Silence Is The Greatest Of All Persecutions: No Saint Was Ever Silent.

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.

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

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

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

When Everyone Is Moving Towards Depravity, No One Seems To Be Moving, But If Someone Stops He Shows Up The Others Who Are Rushing On, By Acting As A Fixed Point.

[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.

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.

Law, Without Force, Is Impotent.

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.

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.

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

Not Only Do We Know God Through Jesus Christ, We Only Know Ourselves Through Jesus Christ.

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.

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.

Few Friendships Would Survive If Each One Knew What His Friend Says Of Him Behind His Back.

Truth Is So Obscure In These Times, And Falsehood So Established, That, Unless We Love The Truth, We Cannot Know It.

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

Lost Friendship

Lost Everything

When We Read Too Fast Or Too Slowly, We Understand Nothing.

Books And Reading

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

Thought Makes The Whole Dignity Of Man; Therefore Endeavor To Think Well, That Is The Only Morality.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Montaigne Is Wrong In Declaring That Custom Ought To Be Followed Simply Because It Is Custom, And Not Because It Is Reasonable Or Just.

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

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.

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.]

There Are Only Three Types Of People; Those Who Have Found God And Serve Him; Those Who Have Not Found God And Seek Him, And Those Who Live Not Seeking, Or Finding Him. The First Are Rational And Happy; The Second Unhappy And Rational, And The Third Foolish And Unhappy.

You Always Admire What You Really Don't Understand.

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

Few Men Speak Humbly Of Humility, Chastely Of Chastity, Skeptically Of Skepticism.

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.

Do You Wish People To Speak Well Of You? Then Do Not Speak At All Yourself.

Evil Is Easy, And Has Infinite Forms.

To Go Beyond The Bounds Of Moderation Is To Outrage Humanity.

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.

Nothing Is So Conformable To Reason As To Disavow Reason.

If You Gain, You Gain All; If You Lose, You Lose Nothing. Wager, Then, Without Hesitation, That He Exists.

Our Reason Is Always Disappointed By The Inconstancy Of Appearances.

Custom Creates The Whole Of Equity, For The Simple Reason That It Is Accepted.

The Law Required What It Could Not Give. Grace Gives That Which It Requires.

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.

True Eloquence Scorns Eloquence.

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.

Anyone Who Does Not See The Vanity Of The World Is Very Vain Himself. So Who Does Not See It, Apart From Young People Whose Lives Are All Noise, Diversions, And Thoughts For The Future? But Take Away Their Diversion And You Will See Them Bored To Extinction. Then They Feel Their Nullity Without Recognizing It, For Nothing Could Be More Wretched Than To Be Intolerably Depressed As Soon As One Is Reduced To Introspection With No Means Of Diversion.

There Is A God-shaped Hole In The Life Of Every Man.

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

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.

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.

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

Desire And Force Between Them Are Responsible For All Our Actions; Desire Causes Our Voluntary Acts, Force Our Involuntary.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Our True Dignity Consists — In Thought. Thence We Must Derive Our Elevation, Not From Space Or Duration. Let Us Endeavor Then To Think Well; This Is The Principle Of Morals.

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.

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."

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.

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.

The Least Movement Is Of Importance To All Nature. The Entire Ocean Is Affected By A Pebble.

Who Knows If This Other Half Of Life Where We Think We're Awake Is Not Another Sleep A Little Different From The First.

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

We Must Kill Them In War, Just Because They Live Beyond The River. If They Lived On This Side, We Would Be Called Murderers.

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

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.

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

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

Great And Small Suffer The Same Mishaps.

Those Are Weaklings Who Know The Truth And Uphold It As Long As It Suits Their Purpose, And Then Abandon It.

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

The Gospel To Me Is Simply Irresistible.

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

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?

Jesus Is The God Whom We Can Approach Without Pride And Before Whom We Can Humble Ourselves Without Despair.

What Part Of Us Feels Pleasure? Is It Our Hand, Our Arm, Our Flesh, Or Our Blood? It Must Obviously Be Something Immaterial.

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

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

The Heart Has Arguments With Which The Logic Of Mind Is Not Aquainted.

The Heart Has Its Order, The Mind Has Its Own, Which Uses Principles And Demonstrations. The Heart Has A Different One. We Do Not Prove That We Ought To Be Loved By Setting Out In Order The Causes Of Love; That Would Be Absurd.

All Our Reasoning Boils Down To Yielding To Sentiment.

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