Blaise Pascal Quotes

539 quotes in 4043 categories

• The consciousness of the falsity of present pleasures, and the ignorance of the vanity of absent pleasures, cause inconstancy.
• The last act is bloody, however pleasant all the rest of the play is: a little earth is thrown at last upon our head, and…
• 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…
• The weather and my mood have little connection. I have my foggy and my fine days within me; my prosperity or misfortune has little to…
• A trifle consoles us, for a trifle distresses us.
• Concupiscence and force are the source of all our actions; concupiscence causes voluntary actions, force involuntary ones.
• Custom is our nature. What are our natural principles but principles of custom?
• Even those who write against fame wish for the fame of having written well, and those who read their works desire the fame of having…
• I can well conceive a man without hands, feet, head. But I cannot conceive man without thought; he would be a stone or a brute.
• 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…
• Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed.
• One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life and there is nothing…
• The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.
• We only consult the ear because the heart is wanting.
• Earnestness is enthusiasm tempered by reason.
• Evil is easy, and has infinite forms.
• Reason commands us far more imperiously than a master; for in disobeying the one we are unfortunate, and in disobeying the other we are fools.
• The charm of fame is so great that we like every object to which it is attached, even death.
• We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put something before us to prevent us seeing it.
• When we see a natural style, we are astonished and charmed; for we expected to see an author, and we find a person.

Browse Blaise Pascal Quotes by Category