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Blaise Pascal
80 quotes
“For as old age is that period of life most remote from infancy, who does not see that old age in this universal man ought not to be sought in the times nearest his birth, but in those most remote from it?”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) first seen 1651 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Preface to the Treatise on Vacuum (c.1651)
“Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) first seen 1656 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Provincial Letters: Letter XVI (4 December 1656)
“People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) first seen 1658 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: De l'Art de persuader ["On the Art of Persuasion"], written 1658; published posthumously.
“Mahomet established a religion by putting his enemies to death; Jesus Christ, by commanding his followers to lay down their own lives.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Thoughts on Religion and Philosophy (W. Collins, 1838), Ch. XVI, p. 202
“FEU. Dieu d'Abraham, Dieu d'Isaac, Dieu de Jacob, non des philosophes et savants. Certitude. Certitude. Sentiment. Joie. Paix.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Note on a parchment stitched to the lining of Pascal's coat, found by a servant shortly after his death, as quoted in Burkitt Speculum religionis (1929), p. 150
“In order to enter into a real knowledge of your condition, consider it in this image: A man was cast by a tempest upon an unknown island, the inhabitants of which were in trouble to find their king, who was lost; and having a strong resemblance both in form and face to this king, he was taken for him, and acknowledged in this capacity by all the people.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Thus he had a double thought: the one by which he acted as king, the other by which he recognized his true state, and that it was accident alone that had placed him in his present condition.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Do not imagine that it is less an accident by which you find yourself master of the wealth which you possess, than that by which this man found himself king.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If it had pleased them [the legislators] to order that this wealth, after having been possessed by fathers during their life, should return to the republic after their death, you would have no reason to complain of it.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The whole title by which you possess your property, is not a title of nature but of a human institution.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This right which you have, is not founded any more than his upon any quality or any merit in yourself which renders you worthy of it. Your soul and your body are, of themselves, indifferent to the state of boatman or that of duke; and there is no natural bond that attaches them to one condition rather than to another.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you act externally with men in conformity with your rank, you should recognize, by a more secret but truer thought, that you have nothing naturally superior to them.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If the public thought elevates you above the generality of men, let the other humble you, and hold you in a perfect equality with all mankind, for this is your natural condition.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Do not mistake yourself by believing that your being has something in it more exalted than that of others.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What would you say of that man who was made king by the error of the people, if he had so far forgotten his natural condition as to imagine that this kingdom was due to him, that he deserved it, and that it belonged to him of right? You would marvel at his stupidity and folly. But is there less in the people of rank who live in so strange a forgetfulness of their natural condition?”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All the excesses, all the violence, and all the vanity of great men, come from the fact that they know not what they are: it being difficult for those who regard themselves at heart as equal with all men... For this it is necessary for one to forget himself, and to believe that he has some real excellence above them, in which consists this illusion that I am endeavoring to discover to you.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If, being duke and peer, you would not be contented with my standing uncovered before you, but should also wish that I should esteem you, I should ask you to show me the qualities that merit my esteem. If you did this, you would gain it, and I could not refuse it to you with justice; but if you did not do it, you would be unjust to demand it of me; and assuredly you would not succeed, were you the greatest prince in the world.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What is it, in your opinion, to be a great nobleman? It is to be master of several objects that men covet, and thus to be able to satisfy the wants and the desires of many. It is these wants and these desires that attract them towards you, and that make them submit to you: were it not for these, they would not even look at you; but they hope, by these services... to obtain from you some part of the good which they desire, and of which they see that you have the disposal.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“God is surrounded with people full of love who demand of him the benefits of love which are in his power: thus he is properly the king of love.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You are in the same manner surrounded with a small circle of persons... full of desire. They demand of you the benefits of desire... You are therefore properly the king of desire. ...equal in this to the greatest kings of the earth... It is desire that constitutes their power; that is, the possession of things that men covet.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is not your strength and your natural power that subjects all these people to you. Do not pretend then to rule them by force or to treat them with harshness. Satisfy their reasonable desires; alleviate their necessities; let your pleasure consist in being beneficent; advance them as much as you can, and you will act like the true king of desire.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are some men who expose themselves to damnation so foolishly by avarice, by brutality, by debauches, by violence, by excesses, by blasphemies! ...it is always a great folly for a man to expose himself to damnation... He must despise desire and its kingdom, and aspire to that kingdom of love in which all the subjects breathe nothing but love, and desire nothing but the benefits of love.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In reading this author [ Montaigne ] and comparing him with Epictetus, I have found that they are assuredly the two greatest defenders of the two most celebrated sects of the world, and the only ones conformable to reason, since we can only follow one of these two roads, namely: either that there is a God, and then we place in him the sovereign good; or that he is uncertain, and that then the true good is also uncertain, since he is incapable of it.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If it is pleasing to observe in nature her desire to paint God in all his works, in which we see some traces of him because they are his images, how much more just is it to consider in the productions of minds the efforts which they make to imitate the essential truth, even in shunning it, and to remark wherein they attain it and wherein they wander from it, as I have endeavored to do in this study.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The source of the errors of these two sects, is in not having known that the state of man at the present time differs from that of his creation; so that the one, remarking some traces of his first greatness and being ignorant of his corruption, has treated nature as sound and without need of redemption, which leads him to the height of pride; whilst the other, feeling the present wretchedness and being ignorant of the original dignity, treats nature as necessarily infirm and irreparable, which precipitates it into despair of arriving at real good, and thence into extreme laxity.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“These two states which it is necessary to know together in order to see the whole truth, being known separately, lead necessarily to one of these two vices, pride or indolence, in which all men are invariably led before grace, since if they do not remain in their disorders through laxity, they forsake them through vanity, so true is that which you have just repeated to me from St. Augustine, and which I find to a great extent; for in fact homage is rendered to them in many ways.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“These philosophers of the world place contrarieties in the same subject; for the one attributed greatness to nature and the other weakness to this same nature, which could not subsist; whilst faith teaches us to place them in different subjects: all that is infirm belonging to nature, all that is powerful belonging to grace. Such is the marvelous and novel union which God alone could teach, and which he alone could make, and which is only a type and an effect of the ineffable union of two natures in the single person of a Man-God.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“C'est une maladie naturelle à l'homme de croire qu'il possède la vérité directement…”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No one is ignorant that there are two avenues by which opinions are received into the soul, which are its two principal powers: the understanding and the will.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All men are almost led to believe not of proof, but by attraction. This way is base, ignoble, and irrelevant; every one therefore disavows it. Each one professes to believe and even to love nothing but what he knows to be worthy of belief and love.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I do not speak here of divine truths... because they are infinitely superior to nature: God alone can place them in the soul... I know that he has desired that they should enter from the heart into the mind, and not from the mind into the heart, to humiliate that proud power of reasoning that pretends to the right to be the judge of the things that the will chooses; and to cure this infirm will which is wholly corrupted by its filthy attachments.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Whilst in speaking of human things, we say that it is necessary to know them before we can love them...the saints on the contrary say in speaking of divine things that it is necessary to love them in order to know them, and that we only enter truth through charity.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They [men] have corrupted this [God's supernatural] order by making profane things what they should make of holy things, because in fact, we believe scarcely any thing except which pleases us.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“God only pours out his light into the mind after having subdued the rebellion of the will by an altogether heavenly gentleness which charms and wins it.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Of the truths within our reach... the mind and the heart are as doors by which they are received into the soul, but... few enter by the mind, whilst they are brought in crowds by the rash caprices of the will, without the council of reason.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Several particular maxims... are as powerful, although false, in carrying away belief, as those the most true.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As soon as the soul has been made to perceive that a thing can conduct it to that which it loves supremely, it must inevitably embrace it with joy.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A doubtful balance is made between truth and pleasure, and... the knowledge of one and the feeling of the other stir up a combat the success of which is very uncertain, since, in order to judge of it, it would be necessary to know all that passes in the innermost spirit of the man, of which man himself is scarcely ever conscious.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is necessary to have regard to the person whom we wish to persuade, of whom we must know the mind and the heart, what principles he acknowledges, what things he loves; and then observe in the thing in question what affinity it has with the acknowledged principles, or with the objects so delightful by the pleasure which they give him.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The art of persuasion consists as much in that of pleasing as in that of convincing, so much more are men governed by caprice than by reason!”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The principles of pleasure are not firm and stable. They are different in all mankind, and variable in every particular with such a diversity that there is no man more different from another than from himself at different times.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are hardly any truths upon which we always remain agreed, and still fewer objects of pleasure which we do not change every hour, I do not know whether there is a means of giving fixed rules for adapting discourse to the inconstancy of our caprices.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This art, which I call the art of persuading, and which, properly speaking, is simply the process of perfect methodical proofs, consists of three essential parts: of defining the terms of which we should avail ourselves by clear definitions, of proposing principles of evident axioms to prove the thing in question; and of always mentally substituting in the demonstrations the definition in the place of the thing defined.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If we do not secure the foundation, we cannot secure the edifice.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A few rules include all that is necessary for the perfection of the definitions, the axioms, and the demonstrations, and consequently of the entire method of the geometrical proofs of the art of persuading.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Rules for Definitions. I. Not to undertake to define any of the things so well known of themselves that the clearer terms cannot be had to explain them. II. Not to leave any terms that are at all obscure or ambiguous without definition. III. Not to employ in the definition of terms any words but such as are perfectly known or already explained.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Rules for Axioms. I. Not to omit any necessary principle without asking whether it is admittied, however clear and evident it may be. II. Not to demand, in axioms, any but things that are perfectly evident in themselves.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Rules for Demonstrations. I. Not to undertake to demonstrate any thing that is so evident of itself that nothing can be given that is clearer to prove it. II. To prove all propositions at all obscure, and to employ in their proof only very evident maxims or propositions already admitted or demonstrated. III. To always mentally substitute definitions in the place of things defined, in order not to be misled by the ambiguity of terms which have been restricted by definitions.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“These eight rules [above] contain all the precepts for solid and immutable proofs.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Five [of the above] rules are of absolute necessity, and cannot be dispensed with without essential defect and often without error.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source