B

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

— Blaise Pascal

Men

All Quotes by Blaise Pascal

“It is not good to be too free. It is not good to have everything one wants.”

— Blaise Pascal

Good

“That we must love one God only is a thing so evident that it does not require miracles to prove it.”

— Blaise Pascal

God

“The immortality of the soul is a matter which is of so great consequence to us and which touches us so profoundly that we must have lost all feeling to be indifferent about it.”

— Blaise Pascal

Great

“Imagination decides everything.”

— Blaise Pascal

Imagination

“I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.”

— Blaise Pascal

Time

“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

“We know the truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart.”

— Blaise Pascal

Truth

“When we are in love we seem to ourselves quite different from what we were before.”

— Blaise Pascal

Love

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

— Blaise Pascal

God

“The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble.”

— Blaise Pascal

Nature

“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

“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

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

— Blaise Pascal

Men

“Small minds are concerned with the extraordinary, great minds with the ordinary.”

— Blaise Pascal

Great

“If all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends in the world.”

— Blaise Pascal

Men

“Nothing is so intolerable to man as being fully at rest, without a passion, without business, without entertainment, without care.”

— Blaise Pascal

Business

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

— Blaise Pascal

Art

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

— Blaise Pascal

God

“Faith embraces many truths which seem to contradict each other.”

— Blaise Pascal

Faith

“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.”

— Blaise Pascal

Knowledge