Blaise Pascal

The heart has its reasons which the mind cannot comprehend.

The heart has its reasons which the mind cannot comprehend.

It is in vain, 0 men, that you seek within yourselves the cure for your miseries. All your insight only read more

It is in vain, 0 men, that you seek within yourselves the cure for your miseries. All your insight only leads you to the knowledge that it is not in yourselves that you will discover the true and the good. The philosophers promised them to you, and have not been able to keep their promises... Your principal maladies are pride, which cuts you off from God, and sensuality, which binds you to the earth; and they have done nothing but foster at least one of these maladies. If they have given you God for your object, it has only been to pander to your pride; they have made you think that you were like Him and resembled Him by your nature. And those who have grasped the vanity of such a pretension have cast you down into the other abyss by making you believe that your nature was like that of the beasts of the field, and have led you to seek your good in lust, which is the lot of animals.

Force and not opinion is the queen of the world; but it is
opinion that uses the force.
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Force and not opinion is the queen of the world; but it is
opinion that uses the force.
[Fr., La force est la reine du monde, et non pas l'opinion; mais
l'opinion est celle qui use de la force.]

Curiosity is only vanity. Most frequently we wish not to know, but to talk. We would not take a sea read more

Curiosity is only vanity. Most frequently we wish not to know, but to talk. We would not take a sea voyage for the sole pleasure of seeing without hope of ever telling.

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

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