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Blaise Pascal

72 quotes

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, and philosopher. A child prodigy in mathematics, he made foundational contributions to probability theory and invented an early mechanical calculator. His *Pensées*, a collection of fragments on theology and philosophy, remains one of the masterpieces of French prose.

“Men blaspheme what they do not know.”

— Blaise Pascal

Men

All Quotes by Blaise Pascal

“Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness.”

— Blaise Pascal

Men

“The struggle alone pleases us, not the victory.”

— Blaise Pascal

Alone

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

— Blaise Pascal

Men

“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.”

— Blaise Pascal

Nature

“Faith is different from proof the latter is human, the former is a Gift from God.”

— Blaise Pascal

Faith

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

— Blaise Pascal

Nature

“Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him?”

— Blaise Pascal

Patriotism

“All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.”

— Blaise Pascal

Alone

“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.”

— Blaise Pascal

Nature

“Man's greatness lies in his power of thought.”

— Blaise Pascal

Power

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

— Blaise Pascal

Imagination

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

— Blaise Pascal

Alone

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

— Blaise Pascal

Time

“Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists.”

— Blaise Pascal

Faith

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

— Blaise Pascal

God

“Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true.”

— Blaise Pascal

Men

“He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God's providence to lead him aright.”

— Blaise Pascal

God

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

— Blaise Pascal

Experience

“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

Future

“We like security: we like the pope to be infallible in matters of faith, and grave doctors to be so in moral questions so that we can feel reassured.”

— Blaise Pascal

Faith