Blaise Pascal (1623 – 1662)
French mathematician, logician, physicist and theologian.
All the excesses, all the violence, and all the vanity of great men, come from the fact that they know not what they are: it being difficult for those who regard themselves at heart as equal with all men... For this it is necessary for one to forget himself, and to believe that he has some real excellence above them, in which consists this illusion that I am endeavoring to discover to you.
Go to confession and communion; you will find it a relief and a strengthening. [no reference found]
Symmetry is what we see at a glance; based on the fact that there is no reason for any difference... 28
How much greater confidence has an advocate, retained with a large fee, in the justice of his cause! How much better does his bold manner make his case appear to the judges, deceived as they are by appearances! How ludicrous is reason, blown with a breath in every direction! 82
Notwithstanding the sight of all our miseries, which press upon us and take us by the throat, we have an instinct which we cannot repress, and which lifts us up. 411
Poetical beauty. ...We know well what is the object of mathematics, and that it consists of proofs, and what is the object of medicine, and that it consists of healing. But we do not know in what grace consists, which is the object of poetry. 33
Reason commands us far more than imperiously than a master; for in disobeying the one we are unfortunate, and in disobeying the other we are fools. 345
Nature has set us so well in the center, that if we change one side of the balance, we change the other also. I act. This makes me believe that the springs in our brain are so adjusted that he who touches one touches also its contrary. 70
The last act is tragic, however happy all the rest of the play is; at the last a little earth is thrown upon our head, and that is the end for ever. 210
Penser fait la grandeur de l'homme.
It is incomprehensible that God should exist, and it is incomprehensible that He should not exist; that the soul should be joined to the body, and that we should have no soul; that the world should be created, and that it should not be created, etc.; that original sin should be, and that it should not be. 230
Imagination.—It is that deceitful part in man, that mistress of error and falsity, the more deceptive, that she is not always so; for she would be an infallible rule of truth, if she were an infallible rule of falsehood. But being most generally false, she gives no sign of her nature, impressing the same character on the true and the false. I do not speak of fools, I speak of the wisest men; and it is among them that the imagination has the great gift of persuasion. Reason protests in vain; it cannot set a true value on things. 82
Différence entre J.-C. et Mahomet. Mahomet non prédit, J.-C. prédit. Mahomet en tuant, J.-C. en faisant tuer les siens. Mahomet en défendant de lire, les apôtres en ordonnant de lire. Enfin cela est si contraire que si Mahomet a pris la voie de réussir humainement, J.-C. a pris celle de périr humainement et qu'au lieu de conclure que puisque Mahomet a réussi, J.-C. a bien pu réussir, il faut dire que puisque Mahomet a réussi, J.-C. devait périr.
...we cannot endure being despised, or not being esteemed by any soul; and all the happiness of men consists in this esteem. 400
Parents fear lest the natural love of their children may fade away. What kind of nature is that which is subject to decay? Custom is a second nature which destroys the former. But what is nature? For is custom not natural? I am much afraid that nature is itself only a first custom, as custom is a second nature. 93
...we cannot think of two things at the same time. 145
...it is not to be doubted that the duration of this life is but a moment; that the state of death is eternal, whatever may be its nature; and that thus all our actions and thoughts must take such different directions according to the state of that eternity, that it is impossible to take one step with sense and judgment, unless we regulate our course by the truth of that point which ought to be our ultimate end. ...thus, according to the principles of reason, the conduct of men is wholly unreasonable, if they do not take another course. 195
Beauty of omission, of judgment. 30
So if we are simply material, we can know nothing at all; and if we are composed of mind and matter, we cannot know perfectly things which are simple, whether spiritual or corporeal. Hence it comes that almost all philosophers have confused ideas of things, and speak of material things in spiritual terms, and of spiritual things in material terms. For they say boldly that bodies have a tendency to fall, that they seek after their centre, that they fly from destruction, that they fear the void, that they have inclinations, sympathies, antipathies, all of which attributes pertain only to mind. And in speaking of minds, they consider them as in a place, and attribute to them movement from one place to another; and these are qualities which belong only to bodies. 72
Unity joined to infinity adds nothing to it, no more than one foot to an infinite measure. 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. 233