Blaise Pascal

The only shame is to have none.

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

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

Faith embraces many truths which seem to contradict each other.

Justice without force is powerless, force without justice is tyrannical.

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.

The struggle alone pleases us not the victory.

We conceal it from ourselves in vain - we must always love something. In those matters seemingly removed from love the feeling is secretly to be found and man cannot possibly live for a moment without it.

Words differently arranged have a different meaning and meanings differently arranged have different effects.

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.

A trifle consoles us for a trifle distresses us.

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

Nothing is as approved as mediocrity the majority has established it and it fixes it fangs on whatever gets beyond it either way.

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

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

Two things control men's nature instinct and experience.

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

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

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

Men blaspheme what they do not know.

Law without force is impotent.

Chance gives rise to thoughts and chance removes them, no art can keep or acquire them.

Man's greatness lies in his power of thought.

Custom is our nature. What are our natural principles but principles of custom?

Jesus is the God whom we can approach without pride and before whom we can humble ourselves without despair.

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.

The charm of fame is so great that we like every object to which it is attached even death.

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

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

Do you wish people to think well of you? Don't speak well of yourself.

If we examine our thoughts we shall find them always occupied with the past and the future.

The strength of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special exertions but by his habitual acts.

People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come in to the mind of others.

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

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.

Habit is a second nature that destroys the first. But what is nature? Why is habit not natural? I am very much afraid that nature itself is only a first habit just as habit is a second nature.

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

There are two kinds of people one can call reasonable: those who serve God with all their heart because they know him and those who seek him with all their heart because they do not know him.

We only consult the ear because the heart is wanting.

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.

It is good to be tired and wearied by the futile search after the true good that we may stretch out our arms to the Redeemer.

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

Truly it is an evil to be full of faults, but it is a still greater evil to be full of them and to be unwilling to recognize them since that is to add the further fault of a voluntary illusion.

All of our reasoning ends in surrender to feeling.

There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who think they are sinners and the sinners who think they are righteous.

The gospel to me is simply irresistible.

Too much and too little wine. Give him none he cannot find truth, give him too much the same.

Earnestness is enthusiasm tempered by reason.

To have no time for philosophy is to be a true philosopher.