The consciousness of the falsity of present pleasures, and the ignorance of the vanity of absent pleasures, cause inconstancy.
— Blaise Pascal
Our soul is cast into a body, where it finds number, time, dimension. Thereupon it reasons, and calls this nature necessity, and can believe nothing else.
The last proceeding of reason is to recognize that there is an infinity of things which are beyond it. There is nothing so conformable to reason as this disavowal of reason.
The immortality of the soul is a matter which is of so great consequence to us and which touches us so profoundly that we must have lost all feeling to be indifferent about it.
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.
Nothing fortifies scepticism more than the fact that there are some who are not sceptics; if all were so, they would be wrong.
The sensitivity of men to small matters, and their indifference to great ones, indicates a strange inversion.
Men often take their imagination for their heart; and they believe they are converted as soon as they think of being converted.
The last act is bloody, however pleasant all the rest of the play is: a little earth is thrown at last upon our head, and that is the end forever.
It is natural for the mind to believe and for the will to love; so that, for want of true objects, they must attach themselves to false.
The only shame is to have none.
We never love a person, but only qualities.
It is incomprehensible that God should exist, and it is incomprehensible that he should not exist.
The greatness of man is great in that he knows himself to be wretched. A tree does not know itself to be wretched.
Justice and truth are too such subtle points that our tools are too blunt to touch them accurately.
Words differently arranged have a different meaning, and meanings differently arranged have different effects.
Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just.
Concupiscence and force are the source of all our actions; concupiscence causes voluntary actions, force involuntary ones.
To have no time for philosophy is to be a true philosopher.
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.
If man made himself the first object of study, he would see how incapable he is of going further. How can a part know the whole?
As men are not able to fight against death, misery, ignorance, they have taken it into their heads, in order to be happy, not to think of them at all.
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!
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.
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 can well conceive a man without hands, feet, head. But I cannot conceive man without thought; he would be a stone or a brute.
Atheism shows strength of mind, but only to a certain degree.
Our nature consists in motion; complete rest is death.
People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come in to the mind of others.
We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put something before us to prevent us seeing it.
Through space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an atom; through thought I comprehend the world.
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.
Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.
He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God's providence to lead him aright.
Continuous eloquence wearies. Grandeur must be abandoned to be appreciated. Continuity in everything is unpleasant. Cold is agreeable, that we may get warm.
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.
There are two kinds of people one can call reasonable: those who serve God with all their heart because they know him, and those who seek him with all their heart because they do not know him.
Custom is our nature. What are our natural principles but principles of custom?
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 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.
Chance gives rise to thoughts, and chance removes them; no art can keep or acquire them.
Between us and heaven or hell there is only life, which is the frailest thing in the world.
A trifle consoles us, for a trifle distresses us.
Justice is what is established; and thus all our established laws will necessarily be regarded as just without examination, since they are established.
Man's true nature being lost, everything becomes his nature; as, his true good being lost, everything becomes his good.
The self is hateful.
The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men.
Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness.
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.
Faith indeed tells what the senses do not tell, but not the contrary of what they see. It is above them and not contrary to them.
