Blaise Pascal (1623 – 1662)
French mathematician, logician, physicist and theologian.
The two principles of truth, reason and senses, are not only both not genuine, but are engaged in mutual deception. The senses deceive reason through false appearances, and the senses are disturbed by passions, which produce false impressions.
People of education are not called poets or mathematicians, &c.; but they are all these, and judges of all these. 34
If it is pleasing to observe in nature her desire to paint God in all his works, in which we see some traces of him because they are his images, how much more just is it to consider in the productions of minds the efforts which they make to imitate the essential truth, even in shunning it, and to remark wherein they attain it and wherein they wander from it, as I have endeavored to do in this study.
...how shall one who is so weak in his childhood become really strong when he grows older? We only change our fancies. All that is made perfect by progress perishes also by progress. All that has been weak can never become absolutely strong. We say in vain, "He has grown, he has changed"; he is also the same. 88
Nothing is more common than good things: the point in question is only to discriminate them; and it is certain that they are all natural and within our reach and even known to all mankind.
The art of persuasion consists as much in that of pleasing as in that of convincing, so much more are men governed by caprice than by reason!
Prophecies. Proofs of Divinity.—Is. xli.: "Shew the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods: we will incline our heart unto your words. Teach us the things that have been at the beginning, and declare us things for to come. "By this we shall know that ye are gods. Yea, do good and do evil, if you can. Let us then behold it and reason together. Behold ye are of nothing, and only an abomination, &c. Who," (among contemporary writers), "hath declared from the beginning and origin? that we may say, You are righteous. There is none that teacheth us, yea, there is none that declareth the future."
Particular Types.—A double law, double tables of the law, a double temple, a double captivity. 651
People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others. 10
Contradiction is a bad sign of truth; several things which are certain are contradicted; several things which are false pass without contradiction. Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the want of contradiction a sign of truth. 384
This internal war of reason against the passions has made a division of those who would have peace into two sects. The first would renounce their passions, and become gods; the others would renounce reason, and become brute beasts. But neither can do so, and reason still remains, to condemn the vileness and injustice of the passions, and to trouble the repose of those who abandon themselves to them; and the passions keep always alive in those who would renounce them. 413
That presumption should be joined to meanness is extreme injustice. 214
Justice is as much a matter of fashion as charm is. 309
There is internal war in man between reason and the passions. If he had only reason without passions. If he had only passions without reason. But having both, he cannot be without strife, being unable to be at peace with the one without being at war with the other. Thus he is always divided against, and opposed to himself. 412
For the visible blessings which they received from God were so great and so divine, that He indeed appeared able to give them those that are invisible, and a Messiah. 674
According to the doctrine of chance, you ought to put yourself to the trouble of searching for the truth; for if you die without worshiping the True Cause, you are lost.—"But," say you, "if He had wished me to worship Him, He would have left me signs of His will."—He has done so; but you neglect them. Seek them, therefore; it is well worth it. 236
...there are some people who lie for the mere sake of lying. 108
Discourses on humility are a source of pride in the vain, and of humility in the humble. So those on scepticism cause believers to affirm. Few men speak humbly of humility, chastely of chastity, few doubtingly of scepticism. We are only falsehood, duplicity, contradiction; we both conceal and disguise ourselves from ourselves. 377
In every man's heart there is an emptiness that only God can fill with his son Jesus Christ.
Epictetus goes much further when he asks: Why do we not lose our temper if someone tells us that we have a headache, while we do lose it if someone says there is anything wrong with our arguments or our choice? 80