Background Image

...

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.

-Blaise Pascal

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

When We Would Show

Blaise Pascal

...

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: 48575

Topic

More From Blaise Pascal

Those Who Are Accustomed To Judge By Feeling Do Not Understand The Process Of Reasoning, Because They Want To Comprehend At A Glance And Are Not Used To Seeking For First Principles. Those, On The Other Hand, Who Are Accustomed To Reason From First Principles Do Not Understand Matters Of Feeling At All, Because They Look For First Principles And Are Unable To Comprehend At A Glance.

Justice Is What Is Established; And Thus All Our Established Laws Will Necessarily Be Regarded As Just Without Examination, Since They Are Established.

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

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."

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.

Small Minds Are Concerned With The Extraordinary, Great Minds With The Ordinary.

Ordinary Extraordinary

Man's Sensitivity To The Little Things And Insensitivity To The Greatest Are The Signs Of A Strange Disorder.

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.

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

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.

Nature Confuses The Skeptics And Reason Confutes The Dogmatists

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

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.

All The Troubles Of Life Come Upon Us Because We Refuse To Sit Quietly For A While Each Day In Our Rooms.

If You Do Not Love Too Much, You Do Not Love Enough.

Faith Embraces Many Truths Which Seem To Contradict Each Other.

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.

Reflecting Upon

Nothing Gives Rest But The Sincere Search For Truth.

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

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.

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.

The Weakness Of Human Reason Appears More Evidently In Those Who Know It Not Than In Those Who Know It.

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

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

A Jester, A Bad Character.

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.

The Entire Ocean Is Affected By A Single Pebble.

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.

Meanings Receive Their Dignity From Words Instead Of Giving It To Them.

Opinion Is The Queen Of The World.

On The Occasions When I Have Pondered Over Men's Various Activities, The Dangers And Worries They Are Exposed To At Court Or At War, From Which So Many Quarrels, Passions, Risky, Often Ill-conceived Actions And So On Are Born, I Have Often Said That Man's Unhappiness Springs From One Thing Alone, His Incapacity To Stay Quietly In One Room.

Even Those Who Write Against Fame Wish For The Fame Of Having Written Well, And Those Who Read Their Works Desire The Fame Of Having Read Them.

There Is No Arena In Which Vanity Displays Itself Under Such A Variety Of Forms As In Conversation.

People Almost Invariably Arrive At Their Beliefs Not On The Basis Of Proof But On The Basis Of What They Find Attractive.

It Is Superstitious To Put One's Hopes In Formalities, But Arrogant To Refuse To Submit To Them.

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

(man,) The Glory And The Scandal Of The Universe.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

We Like Security: We Like The Pope To Be Infallible In Matters Of Faith, And Grave Doctors To Be So In Moral Questions So That We Can Feel Reassured.

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.

What Matters It That Man Should Have A Little More Knowledge Of The Universe? If He Has It, He Gets Little Higher. Is He Not Always Infinitely Removed From The End, And Is Not The Duration Of Our Life Equally Removed From Eternity, Even If It Lasts Ten Years Longer?

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

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.

I Maintain That, If Everyone Knew What Others Said About Him, There Would Not Be Four Friends In The World.

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.

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.

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.

You See, If The Height Of The Mercury [barometer] Column Is Less On The Top Of A Mountain Than At The Foot Of It (as I Have Many Reasons For Believing, Although Everyone Who Has So Far Written About It Is Of The Contrary Opinion), It Follows That The Weight Of The Air Must Be The Sole Cause Of The Phenomenon, And Not That Abhorrence Of A Vacuum, Since It Is Obvious That At The Foot Of The Mountain There Is More Air To Have Weight Than At The Summit, And We Cannot Possibly Say That The Air At The Foot Of The Mountain Has A Greater Aversion To Empty Space Than At The Top.

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.

We Are Not Satisfied With Real Life; We Want To Live Some Imaginary Life In The Eyes Of Other People And To Seem Different From What We Actually Are.

It Is Right That What Is Just Should Be Obeyed. It Is Necessary That What Is Strongest Should Be Obeyed.

It Is Not Shameful For A Man To Succumb To Pain And It Is Shameful To Succumb To Pleasure.

If Ignorance Were Bliss, He'd Be A Blister

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

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

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

When We Do Not Know The Truth Of A Thing, It Is Good That There Should Exist A Common Error Which Determines The Mind Of Man, As, For Example, The Moon, To Which Is Attributed The Change Of Seasons, The Progress Of Diseases, Etc. For The Chief Malady Of Man Is A Restless Curiosity About Things Which He Cannot Understand; And It Is Not So Bad For Him To Be In Error As To Be Curious To No Purpose.

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

Tout Notre Raisonnement Se Re Duit A' Ce Der Au Sentiment. All Our Reasoning Comes Down To Surrendering To Feeling.

Education Produces Natural Intuitions, And Natural Intuitions Are Erased By Education.

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.

How I Hate This Folly Of Not Believing In The Eucharist, Etc.! If The Gospel Be True, If Jesus Christ Be God, What Difficulty Is There?

Let Us Now Speak According To Natural Lights. If There Is A God, He Is Infinitely Incomprehensible. . . . We Are Then Incapable Of Knowing Of Either What He Is Or If He Is. . . .

If There Is A God

Clarity Of Mind Means Clarity Of Passion, Too.

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.

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.

Those Who Profess Contempt For Men, And Put Them On A Level With Beasts, Yet Wish To Be Admired And Believed By Men, And Contradict Themselves By Their Own Feelings--their Nature, Which Is Stronger Than All, Convincing Them Of The Greatness Of Man More Forcibly Than Reason Convinces Them Of His Baseness.

Piety Is Different From Superstition. To Carry Piety To The Extent Of Superstition Is To Destroy It. The Heretics Reproach Us With This Superstitious Submission. It Is Doing What They Reproach Us With.

We Are Only Troubled By The Fears Which We, And Not Nature, Give Ourselves, For They Add To The State In Which We Are The Passions Of The State In Which We Are Not.

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.

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

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

Mediocrity Makes The Most Of Its Native Possessions.

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

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.

To Make A Man A Saint, It Must Indeed Be By Grace; And Whoever Doubts This Does Not Know What A Saint Is, Or A Man.

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?

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

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

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

Continued Eloquence Is Wearisome.

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

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

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.

All The Miseries Of Mankind Come From One Thing, Not Knowing How To Remain Alone.

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

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

The Present Is Never The Mark Of Our Designs. We Use Both Past And Present As Our Means And Instruments, But The Future Only As Our Object And Aim.

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.

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

Men Despise Religion. They Hate It And Are Afraid It May Be True.

For As Old Age Is That Period Of Life Most Remote From Infancy, Who Does Not See That Old Age In This Universal Man Ought Not To Be Sought In The Times Nearest His Birth, But In Those Most Remote From It?

Anyone Who Found The Secret Of Rejoicing When Things Go Well Without Being Annoyed When They Go Badly Would Have Found The Point.

Silence. All Human Unhappiness Comes From Not Knowing How To Stay Quietly In A Room.

Faith Affirms Many Things, Respecting Which The Senses Are Silent, But Nothing That They Deny. It Is Superior, But Never Opposed To Their Testimony

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

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

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

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

Our Senses Will Not Admit Anything Extreme. Too Much Noise Confuses Us, Too Much Light Dazzles Us, Too Great Distance Or Nearness Prevents Vision, Too Great Prolixity Or Brevity Weakens An Argument, Too Much Pleasure Gives Pain, Too Much Accordance Annoys.

Without Jesus Christ Man Must Be In Vice And Misery With Jesus Christ Man Is Free From Vice And Misery In Him Is All Our Virtue And All Our Happiness. Apart From Him There Is But Vice, Misery, Darkness, Death, Despair.

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

Kind Words Produce Their Images On Men's Souls.

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

All Our Dignity Lies In Our Thoughts.

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

Mutual Cheating Is The Foundation Of Society.

Men Despise Religion. They Hate It And Are Afraid It May Be True. The Cure For This Is First To Show That Religion Is Not Contrary To Reason, But Worthy Of Reverence And Respect. Next Make It Attractive, Make Good Men Wish It Were True And Then Show That It Is.

The Sole Cause Of Man's Unhappiness Is That He Does Not Know How To Stay Quietly In His Room.

Let It Not Be Imagined That The Life Of A Good Christian Must Be A Life Of Melancholy And Gloominess; For He Only Resigns Some Pleasures To Enjoy Others Infinitely Better.

Eloquence Is A Painting Of Thought; And Thus Those Who, After Having Painted It, Add Something More, Make A Picture Instead Of A Portrait.

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.

It Is Dangerous To Tell The People That The Laws Are Unjust; For They Obey Them Only Because They Think Them Just. Therefore It Isnecessary To Tell Them At The Same Time That They Must Obey Them Because They Are Laws, Just As They Must Obey Superiors, Not Because They Are Just, But Because They Are Superiors. In This Way All Sedition Is Prevented.

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

Undoubtedly Equality Of Goods Is Just; But, Being Unable To Cause Might To Obey Justice, Men Has Made It Just To Obey Might. Unable To Strengthen Justice, They Have Justified Might--so That The Just And The Strong Should Unite, And There Should Be Peace, Which Is The Sovereign Good.

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.

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

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

The Charm Of Fame Is So Great That We Like Every Object To Which It Is Attached, Even Death.

Let Man Then Contemplate Nature In Full And Lofty Majesty, And Turn His Eyes Away From The Mean Objects Which Surround Him. Let Him Look At The Dazzling Light Hung Aloft As An Eternal Lamp To Lighten The Universe; Let Him Behold The Earth, A Mere Dot Compared With The Vast Circuit Which That Orb Describes, And Stand Amazed To Find That The Vast Circuit Itself Is But A Very Fine Point Compared With The Orbit Traced By The Starts As They Roll Their Course On High.

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

It Is Not Our Task To Secure The Triumph Of Truth, But Merely To Fight On Its Behalf.

Vanity Of Science. Knowledge Of Physical Science Will Not Console Me For Ignorance Of Morality In Time Of Affliction, But Knowledge Of Morality Will Always Console Me For Ignorance Of Physical Science.

All Men Naturally Hate One Another. I Hold It A Fact, That If Men Knew Exactly What One Says Of The Other, There Would Not Be Four Friends In The World.

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

Evil Is Easy, And Has Infinite Forms.

The Finite Is Annihilated In The Presence Of The Infinite, And Becomes A Pure Nothing. So Our Spirit Before God, So Our Justice Before Divine Justice.

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?

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

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

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.

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.

It Is Of Dangerous Consequence To Represent To Man How Near He Is To The Level Of Beasts, Without Showing Him At The Same Time His Greatness. It Is Likewise Dangerous To Let Him See His Greatness Without His Meanness. It Is More Dangerous Yet To Leave Him Ignorant Of Either; But Very Beneficial That He Should Be Made Sensible Of Both.

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.

Look For The Truth, It Wants To Be Found.

Human Beings Must Be Known To Be Loved; But Divine Beings Must Be Loved To Be Known.

Native American

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

There Is Enough Light For Those Who Only Desire To See, And Enough Obscurity For Those Who Have A Contrary Disposition

Truly It Is An Evil To Be Full Of Faults; But It Is A Still Greater Evil To Be Full Of Them And To Be Unwilling To Recognize Them, Since That Is To Add The Further Fault Of A Voluntary Illusion.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

When Intuition And Logic Agree, You Are Always Right.

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.

Don't Try To Add More Years To Your Life. Better Add More Life To Your Years.

To Scorn Philosophy Is Truly To Philosophize.

In Difficult Times Carry Something Beautiful In Your Heart.

Difficult Times

Having Been Unable To Strengthen Justice, We Have Justified Strength.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

All Human Evil Comes From A Single Cause, Man's Inability To Sit Still In A Room.

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

Muhammad Established A Religion By Putting His Enemies To Death; Jesus Christ By Commanding His Followers To Lay Down Their Lives.

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

The Arithmetical Machine Produces Effects That Approach Nearer To Thought Than All The Actions Of Animals. But It Does Nothing That Would Enable Us To Attribute Will To It, As To The Animals.

What Use Is It To Us To Hear It Said Of A Man That He Has Thrown Off The Yoke That He Does Not Believe There Is A God To Watch Over His Actions, That He Reckons Himself The Sole Master Of His Behavior, And That He Does Not Intend To Give An Account Of It To Anyone But Himself?

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

Faith Is A Gift Of God.

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

The Church Limits Her Sacramental Services To The Faithful. Christ Gave Himself Upon The Cross A Ransom For All.

Those Who Do Not Hate Their Own Selfishness And Regard Themselves As More Important Than The Rest Of The World Are Blind Because The Truth Lies Elsewhere

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

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.

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

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

Our Reason Is Always Disappointed By The Inconstancy Of Appearances.

Two Similar Faces, Neither Of Which Alone Causes Laughter, Use Laughter When They Are Together, By Their Resemblance.

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.]

By Thought I Embrace The Universe.

The Last Advance Of Reason Is To Recognize That It Is Surpassed By Innumerable Things; It Is Feeble If It Cannot Realize That.

Man Is So Made That If He Is Told Often Enough That He Is A Fool He Believes It.

Instinct Teaches Us To Look For Happiness Outside Ourselves.

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.

Nothing Is So Insufferable To Man As To Be Completely At Rest, Without Passions, Without Business, Without Diversion, Without Study. He Then Feels His Nothingness, His Forlornness, His Insufficiency, His Dependence, His Weakness, His Emptiness. There Will Immediately Arise From The Depth Of His Heart Weariness, Gloom, Sadness, Fretfulness, Vexation, Despair.

The Present Letter Is A Very Long One, Simply Because I Had No Leisure To Make It Shorter.

To Doubt Is A Misfortune, But To Seek When In Doubt Is An Indispensable Duty. So He Who Doubts And Seeks Not Is At Once Unfortunate And Unfair.

The Stoics Say, "retire Within Yourselves; It Is There You Will Find Your Rest." And That Is Not True. Others Say, "go Out Of Yourselves; Seek Happiness In Amusement." And This Is Not True. Illness Comes. Happiness Is Neither Without Us Nor Within Us. It Is In God, Both Without Us And Within Us.

Description Of Man: Dependence, Longing For Independence, Need.

I Have Made This Letter Longer Than Usual, Only Because I Have Not Had The Time To Make It Shorter.

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.

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

Nothing Is So Conformable To Reason As To Disavow Reason.

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.

Trending Author

Category