Blaise Pascal Quotes - Page 20

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• Mediocrity makes the most of its native possessions.

  Blaise Pascal

  Mediocrity, Possession, Native

  9 Copy quote

• The origins of disputes between philosophers is, that one class of them have undertaken to raise man by displaying his greatness, and the other to debase him by showing his miseries.

  Blaise Pascal

  Greatness, Men, Class

  4 Copy quote

• La vraie e loquence se moque de l'e loquence, la vraie morale se moque de la morale. True eloquence has notime foreloquence, true morality has no time for morality.

  Blaise Pascal

  Time, Morality, Morale

  8 Copy quote

• The mind of the greatest man on earth is not so independent of circumstances as not to feel inconvenienced by the merest buzzing noise about him; it does not need the report of a cannon to disturb his thoughts. The creaking of a vane or a pully is quite enough. Do not wonder that he reasons ill just now; a fly is buzzing by his ear; it is quite enough to unfit him for giving good counsel.

  Blaise Pascal

  Independent, Men, Giving

  Blaise Pascal (1828). “Thoughts on religion, and other subjects”, p.109

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• There are three means of believing--by inspiration, by reason, and by custom. Christianity, which is the only rational institution, does yet admit none for its sons who do not believe by inspiration. Nor does it injure reason or custom, or debar them of their proper force; on the contrary, it directs us to open our minds by the proofs of the former, and to confirm our minds by the authority of the latter.

  Blaise Pascal

  Faith, Inspiration, Believe

  7 Copy quote

• The heart has its reasons, which Reason does not know. We feel it in a thousand things. It is the heart which feels God, and not Reason. This, then, is perfect faith: God felt in the heart.

  Blaise Pascal

  Life, Heart, Perfect

  "Pensées". Book by Blaise Pascal, 1669.

  4 Copy quote

• Habit is a second nature that destroys the first. But what is nature? Why is habit not natural? I am very much afraid that nature itself is only a first habit, just as habit is a second nature.

  Blaise Pascal

  Nature, Firsts, Habit

  Blaise Pascal (2008). “Human Happiness”, Penguin Group USA

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Blaise Pascal

  Tired, May, Arms

  7 Copy quote

• Do little things as if they were great, because of the majesty of the Lord Jesus Christ who dwells in thee.

  Blaise Pascal

  Jesus, Deeds, Littles

  17 Copy quote

• 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.

  Blaise Pascal

  Men, Desire, Strange

  Blaise Pascal (1910). “Thoughts, Letters, and Minor Works”

  4 Copy quote

• We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end.

  Blaise Pascal

  Inspirational, Funny, Sailing

  Blaise Pascal, W. F. Trotter, T. S. Eliot (2003). “Pensees”, p.19, Courier Corporation

  9 Copy quote

• We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end. When we think to attach ourselves to any pointand to fasten to it, it wavers and leaves us; and if we follow it, it eludes our grasp, slips past us, and vanishes for ever. Nothing stays for us.

  Blaise Pascal

  Knowledge, Past, Thinking

  Blaise Pascal, W. F. Trotter, T. S. Eliot (2003). “Pensees”, p.19, Courier Corporation

  7 Copy quote

• 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.

  Blaise Pascal

  Men, Thinking, Judging

  Blaise Pascal (1966). “Pascal Pensées”, Penguin Classics

  5 Copy quote

• 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.

  Blaise Pascal

  Crush, Men, Thinking

  Blaise Pascal (2008). “Human Happiness”, Penguin Group USA

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Blaise Pascal

  Kings, Plato, Order

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Blaise Pascal

  Passion, Knowing, Style

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• 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.

  Blaise Pascal

  Greatness, Men, Ignorant

  7 Copy quote

• To have no time for philosophy is to be a true philosopher.

  Blaise Pascal

  Philosophy, Philosopher

  Blaise Pascal (2008). “Human Happiness”, Penguin Group USA

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• Let each of us examine his thoughts

  Blaise Pascal

  Blaise Pascal (2014). “Selected "Pensees" and Provincial Letters/Pensees et Provinciales choisies: A Dual-Language Book”, p.190, Courier Corporation

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• 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.

  Blaise Pascal

  Respect, Men, Soul

  Blaise Pascal (1828). “Thoughts on religion, and other subjects”, p.95

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• Nothing is thoroughly approved but mediocrity. The majority has established this, and it fixes its fangs on whatever gets beyond it either way.

  Blaise Pascal

  Majority, Mediocrity, Way

  "Thoughts of Blaise Pascal".

  16 Copy quote

• Sneezing absorbs all the functions of the soul just as much as the [sexual] act, but we do not draw from it the same conclusions against the greatness of man, because it is involuntary; although we bring it about, we do so involuntarily. It is not for the sake of the thing in itself but for another end, and is therefore not a sign of man's weakness, or his subjection to this act.

  Blaise Pascal

  Sex, Greatness, Men

  Blaise Pascal (1966). “Pascal Pensées”, Penguin Classics

  8 Copy quote

• Pride counterbalances all our miseries, for it either hides them, or, if it discloses them, boasts of that disclosure. Pride has such a thorough possession of us, even in the midst of our miseries and faults, that we are prepared to sacrifice life with joy, if it may but be talked of.

  Blaise Pascal

  Sacrifice, Pride, Joy

  Blaise Pascal (1849). “Thoughts of Blaise Pascal”, p.89

  10 Copy quote

• The last advance of reason is to recognize that it is surpassed by innumerable things; it is feeble if it cannot realize that.

  Blaise Pascal

  Lasts, Realizing, Reason

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• By space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an atom; by thought I comprehend the world.

  Blaise Pascal

  Space, Atoms, World

  "Thoughts, Letters & Minor Works".

  7 Copy quote

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