A type conveys absence and presence, pleasure and pain. A cipher has a double meaning, one clear, and one in which it is said that the meaning is hidden. 676
Blaise Pascal
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A cipher has two meanings. ...the more so if we find obvious contradictions in the literal meaning? The prophets have clearly said... that their meaning would not be understood, and that it was veiled. 677
Blaise Pascal
If one of two persons, who are telling silly stories, uses language with a double meaning, understood in his own circle, while the other uses it with only one meaning, any one not in the secret, who hears them both talk in this manner, will pass upon them the same judgment. But if afterwords, in the rest of their conversation one says angelic things, and the other always dull commonplaces, he will judge that the one spoke in mysteries, and not the other; the one having sufficiently shown that he is incapable of such foolishness, and capable of being mysterious; and the other that he is incapable of mystery, and capable of foolishness. The Old Testament is a cipher. 690
Blaise Pascal
How greatly then ought we to value those who interpret the cipher, and teach us to understand the hidden meaning, especially if the principles which they educe are perfectly clear and natural! This is what Jesus Christ did, and the Apostles. They broke the seal; He rent the veil, and revealed the spirit. They have taught us through this that the enemies of man are his passions; that the Redeemer would be spiritual, and His reign spiritual; that there would be two advents, one in lowliness to humble the proud, the other in glory to exalt the humble; that Jesus Christ would be both God and man. 677
Blaise Pascal
Every sect is a certificate that God has not plainly revealed his will to man. To each reader the Bible conveys a different meaning. About the meaning of this book, called a revelation, there have been ages of war, and centuries of sword and flame. If written by an infinite God, he must have known that these results must follow; and thus knowing, he must be responsible for all.
Robert G. Ingersoll
The deeper the experience of an absence of meaning — in other words, of absurdity — the more energetically meaning is sought.
Vaclav Havel
Pascal, Blaise
Passeroni, Giancarlo
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