Blaise Pascal

We shall die alone.

What is it, then, that this desire and this inability proclaim to us, but that there was once in man a true happiness of which there now remain to him only the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present? But these are all inadequate, because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to say, only by God Himself.

Le nez de Cléopâtre s’il eût été plus court toute la face de la terre aurait changé .

How vain painting is, exciting admiration by its resemblance to things of which we do not admire the originals.

Je n’ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n’ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte .

Meanings receive their dignity from words instead of giving it to them.

Can anything be more ridiculous than that a man should have the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of the water, and because his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have none with him?

The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views.

The strength of a man’s virtue must not be measured by his efforts, but by his ordinary life.

The whole visible world is only an imperceptible atom in the ample bosom of nature. No idea approaches it.

Plurality which is not reduced to unity is confusion; unity which does not depend on plurality is tyranny.

I have discovered that all man’s unhappiness derives from only one source—not being able to sit quietly in a room.

All the glory of greatness has no lustre for people who are in search of understanding.

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

We perceive an image of truth, and possess only a lie.

We have an idea of truth, invincible to all scepticism.

There would be too great darkness, if truth had not visible signs.

A mere trifle consoles us, for a mere trifle distresses us.

l ime heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer the same persons.

By space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an atom; by thought 1 comprehend the world.

Man is obviously made to think. It is his whole dignity and his whole merit.

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.

Our soul is cast into a body, where it finds number, time, dimension. Thereupon it reasons, and calls this nature necessity, and can believe nothing else.

We are fools to depend upon the society of our fellow-men. Wretched as we are, powerless as we are, they will not aid us; we shall die alone.

Human society is founded on mutual deceit; few friendships would endure if each knew what his friend said of him in his absence.

Do you wish people to believe good of you? Don’t speak.

The only shame is to have none.

Art thou less a slave by being loved and favoured by thy master? Thou art indeed well off, slave. Thy master favours thee; he will soon beat thee.

If men knew themselves, God would heal and pardon them.

We are only falsehood, duplicity, contradiction; we both conceal and disguise ourselves from ourselves.

Each one is all in all to himself; for being dead, all is dead to him.

Grace is indeed needed to turn a man into a saint; and he who doubts it does not know what a saint or a man is.

The power of kings is founded on the reason and on the folly of the people, and specially on their folly.

Rivers are roads which move, and which carry us whither we desire to go.

Instead of complaining that God had hidden Himself, you will give Him thanks for having revealed so much of Himself.

Nothing gives rest but the sincere search for truth.