Quotes By Blaise Pascal

Faith is different from proof; the latter is human, the former is a Gift from God.

We never love a person, but only qualities.

Two things control men's nature, instinct and experience.

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.

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

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.

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

The greatness of man is great in that he knows himself to be wretched. A tree does not know itself to be wretched.

The sensitivity of men to small matters, and their indifference to great ones, indicates a strange inversion.

If we examine our thoughts, we shall find them always occupied with the past and the future.

Small minds are concerned with the extraordinary, great minds with the ordinary.

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

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

The strength of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts.

The self is hateful.

Man's greatness lies in his power of thought.

People are usually more convinced by reasons they discovered themselves than by those found by others.

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.

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.

In each action we must look beyond the action at our past, present, and future state, and at others whom it affects, and see the relations of all those things. And then we shall be very cautious.

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.

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

I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being unable to sit still in a room.

Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much.

There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who think they are sinners and the sinners who think they are righteous.

Nothing gives rest but the sincere search for truth.

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.

The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.

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.

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?