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The heart has its reasons which reason knows not.Blaise Pascal
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I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter.", 1657)Blaise Pascal
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I made this [letter] very long, because I did not have the leisure to make it shorter.Blaise Pascal
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To make light of philosophy is to be a true philosopher.Blaise Pascal
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To ridicule philosophy is really to philosophize.Blaise Pascal
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When I see the blind and wretched state of men, when I survey the whole universe in its deadness, and man left to himself with no light, as though lost in this corner of the universe without knowing who put him there, what he has to do, or what will become of him when he dies, incapable of knowing anything, I am moved to terror, like a man transported in his sleep to some terrifying desert island, who wakes up quite lost, with no means of escape. Then I marvel that so wretched a state does not drive people to despair.Blaise Pascal
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The world is a good judge of things, for it is in natural ignorance, which is man's true state. The sciences have two extremes which meet. The first is the pure natural ignorance in which all men find themselves at birth. The other extreme is that reached by great intellects, who, having run through all that men can know, find they know nothing, and come back again to that same ignorance from which they set out; but this is a learned ignorance which is conscious of itself. Those between the two, who have departed from natural ignorance and not been able to reach the other, have some smattering of this vain knowledge and pretend to be wise. These trouble the world and are bad judges of everything. The people and the wise constitute the world; these despise it, and are despised. They judge badly of everything, and the world judges rightly of them.Blaise Pascal
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Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed.Blaise Pascal
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ΔÏο υπεÏβολÎÏ‚ : ν' αποκλείουμε το Λόγο, και να μη δεχόμαστε παÏά μόνο το Λόγο.Blaise Pascal
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Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.Blaise Pascal
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It is man's natural sickness to believe that he possesses the truth.Blaise Pascal
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He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God's providence to lead him arightBlaise Pascal
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Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.Blaise Pascal
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Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and the scholars. I will not forget thy word. Amen.Blaise Pascal
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Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. Love still stands when all else has fallen.Blaise Pascal
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The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what to put first.Blaise Pascal
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If we submit everything to reason our religion will be left with nothing mysterious or supernatural. If we offend the principles of reason our religion will be absurd and ridiculous .. . There are two equally dangerous extremes: to exclude reason, to admit nothing but reason.Blaise Pascal
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To make a man a saint, it must indeed be by grace; and whoever doubts this does not know what a saint is, or a man.Blaise Pascal
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There are three sources of belief: reason, custom, inspiration.Blaise Pascal
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No religion except ours has taught that man is born in sin none of the philosophical sects has admitted it none therefore has spoken the truthBlaise Pascal
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Since we cannot know all there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything.Blaise Pascal
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He no longer loves the person whom he loved ten years ago. I quite believe it. She is no longer the same, nor is he. He was young, and she also; she is quite different. He would perhaps love her yet, if she were what she was then.Blaise Pascal
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Men spend their time in following a ball or a hare it is the pleasure even of kings.Blaise Pascal
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Few friendships would survive if each one knew what his friend says of him behind his backBlaise Pascal
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All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.Blaise Pascal
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There is nothing we can now call our own, for what we call so is the effect of art; crimes are made by decrees of the senate, or by the votes of the people; and as here-to-fore we are burdened by vices, so now we are oppressed by laws.Blaise Pascal
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There is a certain standard of grace and beauty which consists in a certain relation between our nature... and the thing which pleases us.Blaise Pascal
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When we read too fast or too slowly, we understand nothing.Blaise Pascal
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I would prefer an intelligent hell to a stupid paradise.Blaise Pascal
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Lust is the source of all our actions, and humanity.Blaise Pascal
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Nature has made all her truths independent of one another. Our art makes one dependent on the other.Blaise Pascal
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Those honor nature well, who teach that she can speak on everything.Blaise Pascal
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All things can be deadly to us, even the things made to serve us; as in nature walls can kill us, and stairs can kill us, if we do not walk circumspectly.Blaise Pascal
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The heart has its order, the mind has its own, which uses principles and demonstrations. The heart has a different one. We do not prove that we ought to be loved by setting out in order the causes of love; that would be absurd.Blaise Pascal
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Knowlege of God without knowledge of man's wretchedness leads to pride. Knowledge of man's wretchedness without knowledge of God leads to despair. Knowledge of Jesus Christ is the middle course, because by it we discover both God and our wretched state.Blaise Pascal
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Our intellect holds the same position in the world of thought as our body occupies in the expanse of nature.Blaise Pascal
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The infinite distance between the mind & the body is a symbol of the distance that is infinitely more, between the intellect & love, for love is divine.Blaise Pascal
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We do not content ourselves with the life we have in ourselves and in our own being; we desire to live an imaginary life in the mind of others, and for this purpose we endeavour to shine. We labour unceasingly to adorn and preserve this imaginary existence, and neglect the real. And if we possess calmness, or generosity, or truthfulness, we are eager to make it known, so as to attach these virtues to that imaginary existence. We would rather separate them from ourselves to join them to it; and we would willingly be cowards in order to acquire the reputation of being brave. A great proof of the nothingness of our being, not to be satisfied with the one without the other, and to renounce the one for the other! For he would be infamous who would not die to preserve his honour.Blaise Pascal
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The last thing we discover in composing a work is what to put down first.Blaise Pascal
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If we examine our thoughts, we shall find them always occupied with the past and the future.Blaise Pascal
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God instituted prayer to communicate to creatures the dignity of causality.Blaise Pascal
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Men are so inevitably mad that not to be mad would be to give a mad twist to madness.Blaise Pascal
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Kind words produce their images on men's souls.Blaise Pascal
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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 read them.Blaise Pascal
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Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.Blaise Pascal
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If we do not know ourselves to be full of pride, ambition, lust, weakness, misery, and injustice, we are indeed blind. And if, knowing this, we do not desire deliverance, what can we say of a man...?Blaise Pascal
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The knowledge of God without that of man's misery causes pride. The knowledge of man's misery without that of God causes despair. The knowledge of Jesus Christ is the middle course, because in Him we find both God and our misery.Blaise Pascal
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Man is but a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed.Blaise Pascal
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People often mistake their imagination for their heart, & so often are convinced they are converted as soon as they start thinking of becoming converted.Blaise Pascal
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Few men speak humbly of humility, chastely of chastity, skeptically of skepticism.Blaise Pascal
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If man studied himself, he would see how incapable he is of going further.Blaise Pascal
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Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish muchBlaise Pascal
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Curiosity is only vanity. We usually only want to know something so that we can talk about it.Blaise Pascal
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People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others.Blaise Pascal
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Finally, let them recognise that there are two kinds of people one can call reasonable; those who serve God with all their heart because they know Him, and those who seek Him with all their heart because they do not know Him.Blaise Pascal
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Eloquence is painted thought, and thus those who, after having painted it, add somewhat more, make a picture, not a portrait.Blaise Pascal
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The last thing one knows when writing a book is what to put first.Blaise Pascal
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All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit quiet in a room alone.Blaise Pascal
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Men seek rest in a struggle against difficulties; and when they have conquered these, rest becomes insufferable.Blaise Pascal
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This dog is mine, " said those poor children; "that is my place in the sun." Here is the beginning and the image of the usurpation of all the earth.Blaise Pascal
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The art of opposition and of revolution is to unsettle established customs, sounding them even to their source, to point out their want of authority and justice.Blaise Pascal
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What a Chimera is man! What a novelty, a monster, a chaos, a contradiction, a prodigy! Judge of all things, an imbecile worm; depository of truth, and sewer of error and doubt; the glory and refuse of the universe.Blaise Pascal
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Eloquence.– We need both what is pleasing and what is real, but that which pleases must itself be drawn from the true.Blaise Pascal
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In every 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 these things.Blaise Pascal
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I lay it down as a fact that if all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends in the world.Blaise Pascal
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When I consider the small span of my life absorbed in the eternity of all time, or the small part of space which I can touch or see engulfed by the infinite immensity of spaces that I know not and that know me not, I am frightened and astonished to see myself here instead of there … now instead of then.Blaise Pascal
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People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive.Blaise Pascal
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I do not admire the excess of a virtue like courage unless I see at the same time an excess of the opposite virtue, as in Epaminondas, who possessed extreme courage and extreme kindness. We show greatness not by being at one extreme, but by touching both at once and occupying all the space in between.Blaise Pascal
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The virtue of a man ought to be measured not by his extraordinary exertions, but by his every-day conduct.Blaise Pascal
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Dull minds are never either intuitive or mathematical.Blaise Pascal
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Il n'est pas certain que tout soit incertain.( Translation: It is not certain that everything is uncertain.)Blaise Pascal
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The charm of fame is so great, that we like every object to which it is attached, even death.Blaise Pascal
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Knowing God without knowing our wretchedness leads to pride. Knowing our wretchedness without knowing God leads to despair. Knowing Jesus Christ is the middle course, because in him we find both God and our wretchedness.Blaise Pascal
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We must keep our thought secret, and judge everything by it, while talking like the people.Blaise Pascal
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Just as all things speak about God to those that know Him, and reveal Him to those that love Him, they also hide Him from all those that neither seek nor know Him.Blaise Pascal
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I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shoBlaise Pascal
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Our nature consists in motion complete rest is death.Blaise Pascal
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No animal admires another animal.Blaise Pascal
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Continuity in everything is unpleasant.Blaise Pascal
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Contradiction is not a sign of falsity nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.Blaise Pascal
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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 relation of all those things. And then we shall be very cautious.Blaise Pascal
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We sail within a vast sphere ever drifting in uncertainty driven from end to end.Blaise Pascal
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Losses are comparative imagination only makes them of any moment.Blaise Pascal
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Losses are comparative only imagination makes them of any moment.Blaise Pascal
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Faith declares what the senses do not see but not the contrary of what they see.Blaise Pascal
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Faith is a sounder guide than reason. Reason can go only so far but faith has no limits.Blaise Pascal
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It is the heart which experiences God and not the reason.Blaise Pascal
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It is impossible on reasonable grounds to disbelieve miracles.Blaise Pascal
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Faith is a gift of God.Blaise Pascal
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If we all told what we know of one another there would not be four friends in the worldBlaise Pascal
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It is the heart which experiences God not the reason.Blaise Pascal
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The majority is the best way because it is visible and has strength to make itself obeyed. Yet it is the opinion of the least able.Blaise Pascal
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Everyone without exception is searching for happiness.Blaise Pascal
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All men have happiness as their object: there are no exceptions. However different the means they employ they aim at the same end.Blaise Pascal
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Instinct teaches us to look for happiness outside ourselves.Blaise Pascal
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Man is only a reed the weakest thing in nature but he is a thinking reed.Blaise Pascal
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Nothing is so intolerable to man as being fully at rest without passion without business without entertainment without care. It is then that he recognizes that he is empty insufficient dependent ineffectual. From the depths of his soul now comes at once boredom gloom sorrow chagrin resentment and despair.Blaise Pascal
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If a soldier or labourer complains of the hardship of his lot set him to do nothing.Blaise Pascal
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All our reasoning ends in surrender to feeling.Blaise Pascal
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The heart has reasons which reason cannot understand.Blaise Pascal