Blaise Pascal quotes

“I can well conceive a man without hands, feet, head. But I cannot conceive man without thought; he would be a stone or a brute.”

— Blaise Pascal

“If our condition were truly happy, we would not seek diversion from it in order to make ourselves happy.”

— Blaise Pascal

“Imagination decides everything.”

— Blaise Pascal

“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.”

— Blaise Pascal

“It is incomprehensible that God should exist, and it is incomprehensible that he should not exist.”

— Blaise Pascal

“It is the fight alone that pleases us, not the victory.”

— Blaise Pascal

“Justice is what is established; and thus all our established laws will necessarily be regarded as just without examination, since they are established.”

— Blaise Pascal

“Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed.”

— Blaise Pascal

“Men blaspheme what they do not know.”

— Blaise Pascal

“Nothing fortifies scepticism more than the fact that there are some who are not sceptics; if all were so, they would be wrong.”

— Blaise Pascal

“One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life and there is nothing better.”

— Blaise Pascal

“The consciousness of the falsity of present pleasures, and the ignorance of the vanity of absent pleasures, cause inconstancy.”

— Blaise Pascal

“The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.”

— Blaise Pascal

“The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men.”

— Blaise Pascal

“The last act is bloody, however pleasant all the rest of the play is: a little earth is thrown at last upon our head, and that is the end forever.”

— Blaise Pascal

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

— Blaise Pascal

“There are some who speak well and write badly. For the place and the audience warm them, and draw from their minds more than they think of without that warmth.”

— Blaise Pascal

“Through space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an atom; through thought I comprehend the world.”

— Blaise Pascal

“Vanity is but the surface.”

— Blaise Pascal

“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.”

— Blaise Pascal

“We only consult the ear because the heart is wanting.”

— Blaise Pascal

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

— Blaise Pascal

“Concupiscence and force are the source of all our actions; concupiscence causes voluntary actions, force involuntary ones.”

— Blaise Pascal

“Earnestness is enthusiasm tempered by reason.”

— Blaise Pascal

“Evil is easy, and has infinite forms.”

— Blaise Pascal

“Faith embraces many truths which seem to contradict each other.”

— Blaise Pascal

“If we must not act save on a certainty, we ought not to act on religion, for it is not certain. But how many things we do on an uncertainty, sea voyages, battles!”

— Blaise Pascal

“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.”

— Blaise Pascal

“Justice and truth are too such subtle points that our tools are too blunt to touch them accurately.”

— Blaise Pascal

“Men often take their imagination for their heart; and they believe they are converted as soon as they think of being converted.”

— Blaise Pascal