Quotes By Blaise Pascal

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

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.

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

Man's greatness lies in his power of thought.

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.

I maintain that, if everyone knew what others said about him, there would not be four friends in the world.

The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble.

Men blaspheme what they do not know.

The supreme function of reason is to show man that some things are beyond reason.

Noble deeds that are concealed are most esteemed.

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

The struggle alone pleases us, not the victory.

Little things console us because little things afflict us.

Law, without force, is impotent.

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.

There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.

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.

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.

Nothing fortifies scepticism more than the fact that there are some who are not sceptics; if all were so, they would be wrong.

Man's true nature being lost, everything becomes his nature; as, his true good being lost, everything becomes his good.

If all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends in the world.

One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life and there is nothing better.

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

Earnestness is enthusiasm tempered by reason.

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

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.

Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere.

When we are in love we seem to ourselves quite different from what we were before.

Words differently arranged have a different meaning, and meanings differently arranged have different effects.

Happiness is neither without us nor within us. It is in God, both without us and within us.