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Blaise Pascal Quotes


A trifle consoles us, for a trifle distresses us.

All human evil comes from a single cause, man's inability to sit still in a room.

All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.

All of our reasoning ends in surrender to feeling.

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.

Atheism shows strength of mind, but only to a certain degree.

Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists.

Between us and heaven or hell there is only life, which is the frailest thing in the world.

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?

Chance gives rise to thoughts, and chance removes them; no art can keep or acquire them.

Concupiscence and force are the source of all our actions; concupiscence causes voluntary actions, force involuntary ones.

Continuous eloquence wearies. Grandeur must be abandoned to be appreciated. Continuity in everything is unpleasant. Cold is agreeable, that we may get warm.

Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.

Custom is our nature. What are our natural principles but principles of custom?

Desire and force between them are responsible for all our actions; desire causes our voluntary acts, force our involuntary.

Do you wish people to think well of you? Don't speak well of yourself.

Earnestness is enthusiasm tempered by reason.

Eloquence is a painting of the thoughts.

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.

Evil is easy, and has infinite forms.