Blaise Pascal Quotes

The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.

I would prefer an intelligent hell to a stupid paradise.

Lust and force are the source of all our actions lust causes voluntary actions force involuntary ones.

Continuity in everything is unpleasant.

I made this [letter] very long, because I did not have the leisure to make it shorter.

The power of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special efforts but by his ordinary doing.

Atheism shows strength of mind, but only to a certain degree.

To ridicule philosophy is really to philosophize.

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.

Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much

It is the heart which perceives God and not the reason. That is what faith is: God perceived by the heart, not by the reason.

Faith embraces many truths which seem to contradict each other.

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.

As we are always preparing to be happy it is inevitable that we should never be so.

Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.

Few friendships would survive if each one knew what his friend says of him behind his back

Faith is a sounder guide than reason. Reason can go only so far but faith has no limits.

Kind words produce their images on men's souls.

It is the heart which experiences God and not the reason.

If a soldier or labourer complains of the hardship of his lot set him to do nothing.

Eloquence is a painting of the thoughts.

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

Love has reasons which reason cannot understand.

Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere.

All our reasoning ends in surrender to feeling.

Since we cannot know all that there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything.

All mankind's unhappiness derives from one thing: his inability to know how to remain in repose in one room.

The sensitivity of men to small matters, and their indifference to great ones, indicates a strange inversion.

People often mistake their imagination for their heart, & so often are convinced they are converted as soon as they start thinking of becoming converted.

Two things control men's nature, instinct and experience.

We do not content ourselves with the life we have in ourselves we desire to live an imaginary life in the minds of others and for this purpose we endeavor to shine.

All men have happiness as their object: there are no exceptions. However different the means they employ they aim at the same end.

Men spend their time in following a ball or a hare it is the pleasure even of kings.

It is impossible on reasonable grounds to disbelieve miracles.

The past and present are only our means the future is always our end. Thus we never really live but only hope to live.

People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive.

The heart has reasons which reason cannot understand.

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

If man studied himself, he would see how incapable he is of going further.

Losses are comparative imagination only makes them of any moment.

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

Nature has made all her truths independent of one another. Our art makes one dependent on the other.

The last thing one knows when writing a book is what to put first.

Man's greatness lies in his power of thought.

God instituted prayer to communicate to creatures the dignity of causality.

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

No animal admires another animal.

Our intellect holds the same position in the world of thought as our body occupies in the expanse of nature.

The struggle alone pleases us not the victory.

When we read too fast or too slowly, we understand nothing.