Blaise Pascal Quotes

"Vanity of science. Knowledge of physical science will not console me for ignorance of morality in time of affliction, but knowledge of morality will always console me for ignorance of physical science."

"Animals do not admire each other. A horse does not admire its companion."

"You always admire what you really don't understand."

"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."

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

"Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just."

"Man's greatness lies in his power of thought."

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

"Human beings must be known to be loved; but Divine beings must be loved to be known."

"Imagination disposes of everything; it creates beauty, justice, and happiness, which are everything in this world."

"Noble deeds that are concealed are most esteemed."

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

"Faith indeed tells what the senses do not tell, but not the contrary of what they see. It is above them and not contrary to them."

"In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't."

"To deny, to believe, and to doubt absolutely -- this is for man what running is for a horse."

"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."

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

"He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God's providence to lead him aright"

"Man is obviously made for thinking. Therein lies all his dignity and his merit; and his whole duty is to think as he ought."

"How can people hold these opinions? What joy can we find in the expectation of nothing but hopeless misery? What reason for boasting that we are in impenetrable darkness? And how can it happen that the following argument occurs to a reasonable man?"