Man is visibly made for thinking; that is all his dignity and all his merit.
1670
Source: Thoughts (Pascal)
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal (19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, writer and Catholic theologian. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen.
His whole duty is to think as he ought; and the order of thought is to begin with oneself, with one's author, and one's end.
1670
Source: Thoughts (Pascal)
We think [...] of having fun, of becoming rich, of gaining a reputation, [...] without thinking about what it is to be a human being.
1670
Source: Thoughts (Pascal)
Man's thought is an admirable thing by its nature. [...] How great it is by its nature! How low it is by its defects!
1670
Source: Thoughts (Pascal)
It is false that we are worthy of others' love. It is unjust that we should want it.
1670
Source: Thoughts (Pascal)
We are therefore born unjust. For each one tends towards himself. This is against all order. One must tend towards the general.
1670
Source: Thoughts (Pascal)
The inclination towards oneself is the beginning of all disorder in war, in policy, in economy...
1670
Source: Thoughts (Pascal)
If the members of [...] communities tend to the good of the body, the communities themselves must tend to another, more general body.
1670
Source: Thoughts (Pascal)
Whoever does not hate in himself this self-love, and this instinct which leads him to put himself above everything, is truly blind.
1670
Source: Thoughts (Pascal)
It is unjust and impossible [to place oneself above all else], since everyone demands the same thing.
1670
Source: Thoughts (Pascal)
There is an internal war in man between reason and the passions.
1670
Source: Thoughts (Pascal)
He [man] could enjoy some peace if he had only reason without passions, or if he had only passions without reason.
1670
Source: Thoughts (Pascal)
Thus he is always divided and contrary to himself.
1670
Source: Thoughts (Pascal)
It is a blindness [...] to live without seeking what one is.
1670
Source: Thoughts (Pascal)
It is a much more terrible [blindness] to live badly while believing in God.
1670
Source: Thoughts (Pascal)
In times of trouble, the inhabitants of Paris were obliged, during the night, to place lit lanterns on their windows.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
These precautions had become necessary for public safety; [The city] was prey to thieves and burglars at night.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
But, whether through nonchalance or extreme poverty, this useful regulation was only very imperfectly executed.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
The workers began to make lanterns; but most were not paid, as much due to the necessity of the times as to the poverty of the [...] inhabitants.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
It appears that during the following century, the practice was established [...] of maintaining, at the expense of the inhabitants, lanterns at the crossroads and in the middle of each street.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
Be that as it may, it does not appear that the lantern-bearer enterprise prospered.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
The necessity of lighting the streets for a longer period of time was soon felt.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
A decree [...] ordered that in the future, the lanterns would be lit from the twentieth of October, and that this would continue until the last day of March.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
[...] we returned cheerfully by the light of the lanterns, and safe from thieves.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
Nothing should be disdained that pertains to the history of our customs; we like to know how those who preceded us did things.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
[It is] a means of communication so convenient [...] that allows the smallest fortunes to enjoy facilities that once could only belong to great lords and rich financiers.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
This useful invention has been known for nearly two centuries.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
He only wished to obtain profits in order to pour more abundant alms into the bosom of the poor.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
[...] he saw no great inconvenience in that [...], because the need was too pressing to postpone charity.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
[...] he only wished to have wealth to assist the poor with it, since at the same time God gave him the hope of having it, he began to distribute it in advance [...].
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
Notwithstanding this great vogue, the use [of the concept], three or four years after its establishment, was so despised that it was hardly used anymore [...].
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
[...] this failure was attributed to the death of Pascal, a famous mathematician [...], for as they say, he was its inventor, as well as its conductor [...].
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
As everyone has taken on a particular role in the affair [...], I have eagerly vied for that of letting you know of the good successes.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
[...] one sees people in the streets waiting for a carriage [...], but when it arrives, it is found to be full: this is unfortunate, but one takes comfort, for one knows that another will come.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
I heard the blessings that were given to the authors of an establishment so advantageous and so useful to the public.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
Finally, it is such universal applause that one can say that nothing has ever started so well.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
[...] a dangerous attack was launched against us [...], which aimed to ruin it by turning it into ridicule [...], but the King responded so obligingly [...] that they sheathed their swords, and promptly.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
The desire to make the public more and more satisfied has necessitated great expense to have an equipage with which everyone will have reason to be content.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
The thefts, murders, and accidents that happen daily in our good city of Paris, for lack of sufficient light in the streets [...].
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
As His Majesty takes pleasure in providing various conveniences to his subjects, [...] this gives occasion for minds to seek new ones every day.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
[The goal is to] guide and light up at night those who wish to use the service to come and go wherever they please.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
...with a ban on all persons, of whatever quality and condition they may be, from meddling in such an establishment, without [...] written permission from the owner, who has obtained said privilege [...] privately and to the exclusion of all others.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
...so that those who do not have servants and torches [...] can retire to their homes, at any hour they please, and be guided and lit wherever they see fit.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
...so that the quality and durability [of the products] compel everyone to use them.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
And to avoid all disputes, [it is ordered] that [the portion] once started will be paid for as if it were fully consumed.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
[The advantage is that] the oil [...] cannot spill, whatever violent movement one might make, nor the fire be extinguished by any rain or wind.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
...and to this end [it is ordered] that the [...] lantern-bearers shall have an hourglass, for exactly a quarter of an hour, marked with the city's coat of arms, which they will carry on their belts.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
And if it should happen that their number reaches fifteen or sixteen hundred, then they could be posted at the corners and in the middle of the streets, every three hundred paces.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
...which will provide a third convenience to the public of being lit from post to post.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
This convenience [...] will cause business and trade people to go out more freely, and the streets will be much more frequented at night (which will greatly contribute to ridding the city of thieves).
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
...one may very often find opportunities to be lit for free, by following the [...] lantern-bearers when they are lighting other people.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
[This establishment] provides [opportunities] to those who will be employed in this activity; for example to a number of laborers [...] who, in the winter season, can find no work to earn their living.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
It is also intended that both the torch-bearers and lantern-bearers be known persons with a domicile in this city [...], without which they will not be accepted.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
The thefts, murders, and accidents that occur daily [...] for lack of sufficient light in the streets.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
Most of the bourgeois and business people, not having the means to maintain servants to light their way at night, [...] suffer a very great inconvenience.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
Especially in winter, when the days are short, [...] one does not dare to venture to come and go through the streets, for lack of light.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
For the public convenience, it would be necessary to establish [...] lantern-bearers and torch-bearers to lead, guide, and light those who wish to come and go through the streets.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
By our special grace, full power, and royal authority, we have [...] granted the power, faculty, permission, and privilege to have and to establish...
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
To establish [...] in all streets, squares, and places deemed necessary for public convenience, torch-bearers and lantern-bearers for hire.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
...which lanterns shall have multiple lights, to be distinguished from those of the citizens, and to be recognized at once and without difficulty as being for hire.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
To enjoy and use [the privilege] [...] fully, peacefully, and perpetually.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
It is our will and pleasure that the lanterns at the corners and in the middle of the streets [...] be preserved there, as is customary.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
We expressly forbid all persons [...] from interfering in such an establishment, or causing it any trouble or hindrance, under any pretext whatsoever.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
...under penalty of a one thousand-livre fine, with one third for the general hospital, another for the informant, and the other for [the privilege holder].
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
And so that this may be a firm and stable matter for all time, we have had our seal affixed to these presents.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
...saving, in other things, our right and that of others in all matters.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
The horses [...] took the bit in their teeth at a point on the bridge where there was no guardrail, and plunged into the water.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
The carriage remained on the edge of the precipice.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
[The event] led to the resolution [...] to cease his outings and to live in complete solitude.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
One day in the month of October 1654.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
The material reality of the accident [is deemed] 'insufficiently established'.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
The testimony [...] may be unique, it may be anonymous; it exists, with its certificates of origin and authenticity.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
To have the right to [abolish it], one would have to either rely on contradictory testimony or incriminate the impartiality of those through whom the account was transmitted.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
Otherwise, we must accept it, subject to discussing its probable significance in the moral evolution...
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
The lengthiness and difficulties of ordinary methods [...] made me think of some quicker and easier aid.
1642-1645
Source: The Arithmetical Machine
The insights of geometry, physics, and mechanics provided me with the design, and assured me that its use would be infallible if some craftsman could form the instrument whose model I had imagined.
1642-1645
Source: The Arithmetical Machine
Unknown inventions always have more critics than supporters: those who found them are blamed because one does not have a perfect understanding of them.
1642-1645
Source: The Arithmetical Machine
Through an unjust prejudice, the difficulty one imagines in extraordinary things causes them to be accused of impossibility, instead of being considered for their value.
1642-1645
Source: The Arithmetical Machine
[Science] has the advantage of teaching nothing that it does not demonstrate.
1642-1645
Source: The Arithmetical Machine
[Some doctrines are] among those that can only be taught by word of mouth, and a written discourse on the matter would be as much or more useless and cumbersome.
1642-1645
Source: The Arithmetical Machine
[Certain minds] persuade themselves that many things are possible which are not, for they possess only an imperfect theory of things in general.
1642-1645
Source: The Arithmetical Machine
To make the movement of the operation simpler, it was necessary for the machine to be built with a more complex movement.
1642-1645
Source: The Arithmetical Machine
The instrument compensates for the defect of ignorance [...], and through necessary movements, it performs by itself, without even the intention of its user, all possible shortcuts.
1642-1645
Source: The Arithmetical Machine
This machine frees the one who operates it from this vexation; it is enough that he has judgment, it relieves him of the defect of memory.
1642-1645
Source: The Arithmetical Machine
For new inventions, art must be aided by theory until use has made the rules of theory so common that they are finally reduced to art.
1642-1645
Source: The Arithmetical Machine
It is [...] absolutely impossible for simple artisans, however skilled they may be, to perfect a new piece consisting of complicated movements, without the help of a person who, by the rules of theory, gives them the measurements.
1642-1645
Source: The Arithmetical Machine
The sight of this little monstrosity displeased me to the highest degree [...] from the just apprehension that false copies [...] might ruin its esteem from its very birth.
1642-1645
Source: The Arithmetical Machine
I had the patience to make up to more than fifty models, all different, [...] before arriving at the accomplishment of the machine that I now present.
1642-1645
Source: The Arithmetical Machine
The operations which by previous methods are laborious, complex, long, and uncertain, become easy, simple, prompt, and assured.
1642-1645
Source: The Arithmetical Machine
Pascal's method, which at first promised to be historical and analytical, ultimately appears as logical and synthetic.
1663
Source: Treatises on the equilibrium of liquids and the weight of the mass of air
The honest man of the new generation is distinguished [...] by the diligence he applies to detaching himself from what we would today call the social self, to placing himself above all professional vanity.
1663
Source: Treatises on the equilibrium of liquids and the weight of the mass of air
For [some], the conciseness of style, the impersonality of the work, are signs of moral elegance.
1663
Source: Treatises on the equilibrium of liquids and the weight of the mass of air
[He] had [...] so well known [...] the vanity and nothingness of all these kinds of knowledge [...] that he could hardly bear for intelligent people to occupy themselves with them and speak of them seriously.
1663
Source: Treatises on the equilibrium of liquids and the weight of the mass of air
The equilibrium between a gaseous mass and a liquid column is only a particular case of the equilibrium observed between two liquid columns in communicating vessels.
1663
Source: Treatises on the equilibrium of liquids and the weight of the mass of air
Why does a man submerged in water not feel the weight of the liquid medium?
1663
Source: Treatises on the equilibrium of liquids and the weight of the mass of air
Stevin explains Archimedes' solutions regarding bodies submerged in water by the pressure that the upper layers of a liquid exert on the lower layers.
1663
Source: Treatises on the equilibrium of liquids and the weight of the mass of air
The very rapid rise of the small amount of water in the smaller caliber pipe resists the very slow descent of the large amount of water.
1663
Source: Treatises on the equilibrium of liquids and the weight of the mass of air
The last thing one finds when creating a work [...] is knowing what one must put first.
1663
Source: Treatises on the equilibrium of liquids and the weight of the mass of air
When two weights are applied to the same mechanism, the condition [...] for it to remain at rest is that among the possible displacements [...] there is none that causes the common center of such weights to be lowered.
1663
Source: Treatises on the equilibrium of liquids and the weight of the mass of air
Gases are heavy and are heavy fluids, like liquids; but in turn, liquids do not weigh in any other way than solids.
1663
Source: Treatises on the equilibrium of liquids and the weight of the mass of air
The laws of gravity are the same in whatever medium bodies are immersed.
1663
Source: Treatises on the equilibrium of liquids and the weight of the mass of air
The statics of solids, hydrostatics, and the statics of gases are integral parts of one and the same science, which is capable of taking the form of a rational deduction.
1663
Source: Treatises on the equilibrium of liquids and the weight of the mass of air
The unity and simplicity of this concept would easily make one forget what a long series of obstacles had to be overcome to achieve it.
1663
Source: Treatises on the equilibrium of liquids and the weight of the mass of air
Pascal renounced [...] including anything in a scientific study that would recall either the personality of the author or the personality of his predecessors.
1663
Source: Treatises on the equilibrium of liquids and the weight of the mass of air
The text of the first edition [...] represents the initial form of the author's thought.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
The changes [...] are generally either attenuations of the thought, or clarifications intended to avoid accusations of ambiguity.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
Often one also finds stylistic softenings, updates made to the syntactical constructions.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
[Some] found the author's style too archaic and sometimes too brutal.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
The changes were nevertheless approved or tolerated by the author, and it is essential to provide them as variants.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
The spelling is very inconsistent, varying for the same word within the same copy.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
Punctuation [...] is highly variable.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
...a form of punctuation [...] that is too contrary to our modern habits.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
The similarities [...], even when they differ, indicate a deliberate choice to conform to a single type.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
Nothing allows us to say whether [one] was made based on [the other], or vice versa.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
[One must keep] the spelling with its quirks, [and only modify] the punctuation when the text becomes clearer as a result.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
...my curiosity made me almost as ardent as him.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
...the void was not an impossible thing in Nature, and that She did not flee from it with such horror as many imagine.
1647
Source: New Experiments Concerning the Vacuum
What compelled me to this thought was the weak foundation I saw for the widely accepted maxim that Nature abhors a vacuum, which is supported only by experiments, most of which are very false [...].
1647
Source: New Experiments Concerning the Vacuum
...the most favorable [experiments] show nothing other than that Nature has a horror of the void, not that She cannot suffer it.
1647
Source: New Experiments Concerning the Vacuum
...all, conspiring to banish the void, exercised [...] that power of the mind, called Subtlety, [...] which, for the solution of real difficulties, gives only vain and baseless words.
1647
Source: New Experiments Concerning the Vacuum
I resolved, therefore, to conduct experiments so convincing that they would be proof against all possible objections.
1647
Source: New Experiments Concerning the Vacuum
...I content myself with showing a large empty space, and leave it to learned and curious persons to test what is done in such a space.
1647
Source: New Experiments Concerning the Vacuum
I feared that another, who had not employed the time, money, nor the effort, might preempt me, giving to the public things he had not seen [...].
1647
Source: New Experiments Concerning the Vacuum
That all bodies are reluctant to separate from one another [...]; that is to say, that Nature abhors the void.
1647
Source: New Experiments Concerning the Vacuum
That this horror or reluctance which all bodies have is not greater for admitting a large void than a small one.
1647
Source: New Experiments Concerning the Vacuum
That the force of this horror is limited, and equal to that with which water from a certain height [...] tends to flow downwards.
1647
Source: New Experiments Concerning the Vacuum
...my opinion shall be, until someone has shown me the existence of some matter that fills it, that it is truly empty, and devoid of all matter.
1647
Source: New Experiments Concerning the Vacuum
[Objection:] That this proposition, that Nature abhors the void, and yet admits it, accuses Her of impotence, or implies a contradiction.
1647
Source: New Experiments Concerning the Vacuum
[Objection:] That this proposition, that a space is empty, is repugnant to common sense.
1647
Source: New Experiments Concerning the Vacuum
...which carriages will depart whether full or empty...
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
[The carriages] will only stop to let people get on and off at any place on the said route as desired...
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
...where each person will pay for their seat only the ordinary price.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
For the greater convenience of the public, while waiting for all the routes to be established [...], one will be able to go in the same carriage from any neighborhood of Paris to the others.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
...although when changing carriages, one is obliged to pay again, nevertheless the price is so modest, and the convenience so great...
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
And given that experience has shown that various inconveniences occurred when entire carriages were booked...
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
...which brought a very notable inconvenience to those waiting on the route...
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
...no one will be able to book the said carriages entirely, except by paying for all eight seats.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
[It can happen] that the coachmen refuse to stop to pick up [passengers] on the route, even though there are still empty seats...
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
...we ask those who might have any reason to complain about the coachmen, to please remember the mark of the carriage, and to report it [...] so that the necessary order may be given.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
The carriages will always be emblazoned with the arms and crests of the City of Paris, and the coachmen dressed in a blue coat.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
...it is forbidden for all soldiers, pages, lackeys, and other men-at-arms to enter...
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
...for the greater convenience and freedom of the bourgeois.
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
...will continue every half a quarter of an hour; which will be executed better and better...
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
all those who find themselves in the streets [...] will be able to take the said carriages at whichever place on the said route is most convenient for them...
1662
Source: The Five-Penny Coaches
I have read your Experiments concerning the void, which I consider very beautiful and ingenious, but I do not understand this apparent void that appears in the tube [...].
1653-1662
Source: Letters of Blaise Pascal and his Correspondents
I say that it is a body, since it has the actions of a body, that it transmits light with refractions and reflections, that it brings a delay to the movement of another body [...].
1653-1662
Source: Letters of Blaise Pascal and his Correspondents
[...] the air we breathe is a mixture of fire, water, earth, and air [...]. This is the common understanding of physicists, who teach that the elements are mixed.
1653-1662
Source: Letters of Blaise Pascal and his Correspondents
I call violence anything that separates these naturally united bodies [...], which, when removed, allows the parts to rejoin and mix as before.
1653-1662
Source: Letters of Blaise Pascal and his Correspondents
Let us presuppose a true thing, that glass has a great quantity of pores [...].
1653-1662
Source: Letters of Blaise Pascal and his Correspondents
[...] all bodies have a reluctance to separate from one another.
1653-1662
Source: Letters of Blaise Pascal and his Correspondents
Indeed, this proposition, that a space is empty, [...] not only repulses common sense, but also manifestly contradicts itself.
1653-1662
Source: Letters of Blaise Pascal and his Correspondents
[...] he who understands what a body is, understands it as a compound of parts outside one another, some high, others low, some to the right, others to the left, a compound that is long, wide, deep [...].
1653-1662
Source: Letters of Blaise Pascal and his Correspondents
[...] so that space or interval is not only body, but body between two or more bodies.
1653-1662
Source: Letters of Blaise Pascal and his Correspondents
If, then, by this word void, we mean a privation of all body, [...] this presupposition that a space is void destroys and contradicts itself.
1653-1662
Source: Letters of Blaise Pascal and his Correspondents
[...] the air, because it is invisible, is taken for empty space; but inasmuch as it is space, we conclude that it is a body [...].
1653-1662
Source: Letters of Blaise Pascal and his Correspondents
You will easily admit that nature, not in its whole, but in its parts, suffers violence by the movement of some overcoming the resistance of others; this is what God uses for the ornament and variety of the world.
1653-1662
Source: Letters of Blaise Pascal and his Correspondents
The fifth [objection] is a peremptory proof of the plenum, since light [...] is a luminary movement of rays, composed of lucid bodies that fill transparent bodies [...].
1653-1662
Source: Letters of Blaise Pascal and his Correspondents
The subtle entry of these small bodies of air and fire which are everywhere, appearing less to the senses than to reason, leads one to conjecture a void that is a privation of all body.
1653-1662
Source: Letters of Blaise Pascal and his Correspondents
Be that as it may, you have examined a very important truth for those who research natural things, and by this examination, have obliged the public, and me in particular [...].
1653-1662
Source: Letters of Blaise Pascal and his Correspondents
You know how much these troubles disturb the peace of the household, both externally and internally.
1656-1657
Source: Pascal Complete Works Hachette, Volume 2/Letters
I would fear that you retained it humanly, if you had not forgotten the person from whom you learned it, to remember only God who alone can have truly taught it.
1656-1657
Source: Pascal Complete Works Hachette, Volume 2/Letters
It is enough to have once learned the things of this world [...], whereas it is not enough to have once understood those of the other kind [spiritual truths].
1656-1657
Source: Pascal Complete Works Hachette, Volume 2/Letters
The knowledge we acquire [by simple remembrance] [...] is but an effect of memory.
1656-1657
Source: Pascal Complete Works Hachette, Volume 2/Letters
To understand this secret language [...], the same grace that alone can give the first understanding must continue it and make it ever-present.
1656-1657
Source: Pascal Complete Works Hachette, Volume 2/Letters
The continuation of the righteousness of the faithful is nothing other than the continuation of the infusion of grace, and not a single grace that endures forever.
1656-1657
Source: Pascal Complete Works Hachette, Volume 2/Letters
[This] teaches us the perpetual dependence we have on God's mercy, since, if He interrupts its course ever so slightly, dryness necessarily follows.
1656-1657
Source: Pascal Complete Works Hachette, Volume 2/Letters
One must continually make new efforts to acquire this continual newness of spirit.
1656-1657
Source: Pascal Complete Works Hachette, Volume 2/Letters
One cannot preserve old grace except by acquiring new grace; otherwise, one will lose what one thinks one holds, like those who, wishing to enclose the light, enclose only darkness.
1656-1657
Source: Pascal Complete Works Hachette, Volume 2/Letters
We must be vigilant to ceaselessly purify our inner self, which is always soiled by new stains while also retaining the old ones.
1656-1657
Source: Pascal Complete Works Hachette, Volume 2/Letters
Without assiduous renewal, one is not able to receive this new wine which will not be put into old wineskins.
1656-1657
Source: Pascal Complete Works Hachette, Volume 2/Letters
Do not fear to put before our eyes the things we have in our memory, and which must be brought back into the heart.
1656-1657
Source: Pascal Complete Works Hachette, Volume 2/Letters
It very often happens that God uses external means to make [holy things] understood and to leave all the less material for human vanity.
1656-1657
Source: Pascal Complete Works Hachette, Volume 2/Letters
A book [...], however common, brings much more fruit to one who applies himself to it with disposition, than the excellence of more elevated discourses which often bring more pleasure than instruction.
1656-1657
Source: Pascal Complete Works Hachette, Volume 2/Letters
One sometimes sees that those who listen as they should, though ignorant, are touched by the mere name of God.
1656-1657
Source: Pascal Complete Works Hachette, Volume 2/Letters
[...] the charity you owe to your kin should make you desire that they yield to reason, but in all things, and not simply in what concerns us; otherwise, it would be an effect of cupidity and not of charity.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
[...] our advantage, for us, is to be despised, to be rejected, to be slandered, to have injustices done to us. [...] but as for us, it is a very great happiness.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
In what would our selflessness consist if we were not of that sentiment? It would then be nothing but talk and posturing to make ourselves esteemed by the world.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
If thieves had come this night and taken our money [...] one would nonetheless feel no true affliction [...]. You see then that one must not flatter oneself, and that it is for oneself and for one's own interest that one gets angry.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
[...] when this divine virtue [charity] is as strongly rooted in a soul [...], it is she who rules everything there: she operates everything, she produces even the slightest of its movements and thoughts.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
We are always more affected by what concerns us.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
We know that all that is not done by the spirit of God and by charity is done by cupidity, and that all that is done by cupidity is sin.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
One must not deceive oneself thus; one must know evil as it is and where it is.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
Let us be careful not to complain about what God takes from us that is dear; instead, let us thank him for having lent it to us for so long.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
The sick must look upon their bed as an altar where they continually offer to God the sacrifice of their life, to give it back to Him when He pleases.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
Man is born to think; thus he is not a moment without doing so; but pure thoughts, which would make him happy if he could always sustain them, tire and overwhelm him.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
The more wit one has, the greater the passions.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
One asks if one should love. That should not be asked: it must be felt. One does not deliberate on it, one is carried to it.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
Man alone is something imperfect; he must find a second to be happy.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
When one is far from what one loves, one resolves to do and say many things; but when one is near, one is irresolute.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
He was always accustomed to ponder things deeply, and to arrange them in his mind before bringing them forth, in order to carefully consider and examine which should be placed first or last.
1670
Source: Thoughts (Pascal)
He was almost never content with his first thoughts, however good they seemed to others, and often rewrote up to eight or ten times pieces that everyone else found admirable from the very first.
1670
Source: Thoughts (Pascal)
One cannot notice without astonishment and admiration [...] one's greatness and lowliness, one's advantages and weaknesses, [...] and finally all the astounding contradictions found in one's nature.
1670
Source: Thoughts (Pascal)
He must wish, after having thus known what he is, to also know where he comes from, and what he is to become.
1670
Source: Thoughts (Pascal)
It is not difficult [...] to judge that it is not with [the philosophers] that one should settle.
1670
Source: Thoughts (Pascal)
This first fall is the source not only of all that is most incomprehensible in the nature of man, but also of an infinity of effects outside of him, the cause of which is unknown to him.
1670
Source: Thoughts (Pascal)
The essence of its worship consists in the love of the God it adores; which is a most singular character, and which visibly distinguishes it from all other Religions.
1670
Source: Thoughts (Pascal)
A craftsman who speaks of riches, a prosecutor who speaks of war [...]. But the rich man speaks well of riches, the king speaks coldly of a great gift he has just made, and God speaks well of God.
1670
Source: Thoughts (Pascal)
He did not claim to prove the truths of Religion by geometric demonstrations [...] but by moral proofs that go more to the heart than to the mind.
1670
Source: Thoughts (Pascal)
He wanted to work more on touching and disposing the heart than on convincing and persuading the mind; because he knew that the passions [...] that corrupt the heart are the greatest obstacles [...] to faith.
1670
Source: Thoughts (Pascal)
This knowledge without Jesus Christ is useless and sterile. Even if a man were persuaded that the proportions of numbers are eternal truths, [...] I would not find him much advanced for his salvation.
1670
Source: Thoughts (Pascal)
All that is the object of faith cannot be the object of reason, and much less be submitted to it.
1670
Source: Thoughts (Pascal)
The Christian religion obliges us to live only for God, and to have no other object than Him.
1670
Source: Thoughts (Pascal)
He established the rule of his life [...] on two main maxims, which are to renounce all pleasure, and all superfluity.
1670
Source: Thoughts (Pascal)
To say many things in few words.
1670
Source: Thoughts (Pascal)
I equally blame [...] those who choose to praise man, [...] to blame him, and [...] to amuse themselves; and I can only approve of those who seek in sorrow.
1670
Source: Thoughts, Fragments and Letters of Blaise Pascal
This is the final fate of the illustrious, even of the saints [...]. They do not escape it; they are fodder for human glory: it is their last martyrdom.
1670
Source: Thoughts, Fragments and Letters of Blaise Pascal
Let us revisit our masters up close; let us restore their true words [...]. An excellent regimen that I propose, even to original authors, to reinvigorate themselves for a season.
1670
Source: Thoughts, Fragments and Letters of Blaise Pascal
Pascal's writing [...] is excessively rapid, it seems to rival the speed of the mind, one might call it a kind of shorthand forced to capture on the fly the improvisation of an intelligence in a hurry to express itself [...].
1670
Source: Thoughts, Fragments and Letters of Blaise Pascal
Too much literalness [...] in the printing of posthumous works is [...] another kind of infidelity to the dead: for they themselves, when alive, would in more than one case have revised and modified.
1670
Source: Thoughts, Fragments and Letters of Blaise Pascal
What remains of men's thoughts and inner lives [...] is never more than the fragment of fragments; we are missing the intermediate links.
1670
Source: Thoughts, Fragments and Letters of Blaise Pascal
Each of us makes his own. [version of Pascal]
1670
Source: Thoughts, Fragments and Letters of Blaise Pascal
Doubt and living faith, one fleeting, the other immutable, were born for him on the same day; as if God [...] had wished to furnish the heart of the fortress with an impregnable rampart.
1670
Source: Thoughts, Fragments and Letters of Blaise Pascal
Everyone carries their own temperament into their philosophy and theology, a fact too often forgotten.
1670
Source: Thoughts, Fragments and Letters of Blaise Pascal
Perfect faith is God felt by the heart!
1670
Source: Thoughts, Fragments and Letters of Blaise Pascal
Those to whom God has given religion by a feeling of the heart are blessed [...]. To those who do not have it, we can only give it by reasoning, while waiting for God to give it to them by a feeling of the heart [...].
1670
Source: Thoughts, Fragments and Letters of Blaise Pascal
One must know when to doubt, when to be certain, and when to submit.
1670
Source: Thoughts, Fragments and Letters of Blaise Pascal
One must have these three qualities: Pyrrhonian, Geometer, submissive Christian; and they harmonize and moderate one another, by doubting where one must, by being certain where one must, and by submitting where one must.
1670
Source: Thoughts, Fragments and Letters of Blaise Pascal
There is nothing profound and serious in man but holy poverty and renunciation, the fruitful sadness that turns into joy: all the rest is frivolity.
1670
Source: Thoughts, Fragments and Letters of Blaise Pascal
Sickness is the natural state of the Christian.
1670
Source: Thoughts, Fragments and Letters of Blaise Pascal
One can have three main objectives in the study of truth: one, to discover it when one seeks it; another, to demonstrate it when one possesses it; the last, to discern it from the false when one examines it.
circa 1658
Source: Concerning the geometrical mind and the art of persuasion
This true method [...] would consist of two main things: [...] to use no term whose meaning has not first been clearly explained; [and] never to advance any proposition that is not demonstrated by truths already known.
circa 1658
Source: Concerning the geometrical mind and the art of persuasion
definitions are very free, and [...] they are never subject to contradiction; for there is nothing more permissible than to give to a thing that one has clearly designated whatever name one wishes.
circa 1658
Source: Concerning the geometrical mind and the art of persuasion
Nothing dispels the captious surprises of sophists more promptly and powerfully than this method [of definition], [...] which alone is sufficient to banish all sorts of difficulties and equivocations.
circa 1658
Source: Concerning the geometrical mind and the art of persuasion
men are in a natural and immutable powerlessness to treat any science whatsoever in an absolutely complete order.
circa 1658
Source: Concerning the geometrical mind and the art of persuasion
This order, the most perfect among men, consists [...] in keeping to this middle ground of not defining things that are clear [...], and defining all others; and of not proving all things known [...], and proving all others.
circa 1658
Source: Concerning the geometrical mind and the art of persuasion
[For the simplest things], the lack of definition is a perfection rather than a defect, because it comes not from their obscurity, but on the contrary from their extreme evidence.
circa 1658
Source: Concerning the geometrical mind and the art of persuasion
It is a natural malady of man to believe that he possesses the truth directly; and from this comes his constant disposition to deny everything that is incomprehensible to him.
circa 1658
Source: Concerning the geometrical mind and the art of persuasion
whenever a proposition is inconceivable, one must suspend judgment [...], but examine its contrary; and if one finds the contrary to be manifestly false, one can boldly affirm the first, however incomprehensible it may be.
circa 1658
Source: Concerning the geometrical mind and the art of persuasion
learn [...] to know themselves, by seeing themselves placed between an infinity and a nothingness [...]. From which one can learn to value oneself at one's true worth, and to form reflections that are worth more than all the rest of geometry itself.
circa 1658
Source: Concerning the geometrical mind and the art of persuasion
No one is unaware that there are two entrances by which opinions are received into the soul, [...] the understanding and the will. The most natural is that of the understanding, [...] but the most common [...] is that of the will.
circa 1658
Source: Concerning the geometrical mind and the art of persuasion
all men are almost always led to believe not by proof, but by what is pleasing. This way is base, unworthy, and foreign: thus everyone disavows it.
circa 1658
Source: Concerning the geometrical mind and the art of persuasion
the art of persuasion consists as much in the art of pleasing as in that of convincing, so much more are men governed by caprice than by reason!
circa 1658
Source: Concerning the geometrical mind and the art of persuasion
The best books are those that their readers believe they could have written. Nature, which alone is good, is thoroughly familiar and common.
circa 1658
Source: Concerning the geometrical mind and the art of persuasion
Nothing is more common than good things: it is only a matter of discerning them; [...] and it is certain that they are all natural and within our reach. But we do not know how to distinguish them.
circa 1658
Source: Concerning the geometrical mind and the art of persuasion
He has a very good mind, but he is not a geometer (which is, as you know, a great flaw) and he does not even understand that a mathematical line is infinitely divisible.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
Our thoughts align so exactly that it seems they have taken the same route and followed the same path.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
I am somewhat reluctant to [write to you], for fear that [...] this admirable agreement, which was between us and so dear to me, may begin to be contradicted.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
I am convinced that the true way to keep from erring is to concur with you.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
I have no other advantage over you than that of having meditated on it much more; but that is a small thing in your regard, since your first insights are more penetrating than the length of my efforts.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
If I were to say more, it would amount to a compliment, and we have banished that enemy of sweet and easy conversations.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
I shall not consider myself certain until you are on my side.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
Here in a few words is the whole mystery, which will undoubtedly restore our good understanding, since we both seek nothing but reason and truth.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
As for me, I confess that [your numerical inventions] are far beyond me; I am only capable of admiring them.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
I even desire that this Work appear without my name, [...] the author [being described as] your friend.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
The money that players have put into the game no longer belongs to them [...] but they have received in return the right to await what chance may give them of it.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
The settlement of what belongs to them must be proportioned to what they had the right to hope from fortune, such that each finds it entirely equal to take what is assigned to him or to continue the adventure of the game.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
I infinitely esteem his genius and believe him very capable of succeeding in anything he undertakes.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
[On this subject,] I leave much more than I give; it is a strange thing how fertile it is in properties. Everyone may try their hand at it.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal
He applied himself [to these treatises] only lightly [...] to relax his mind, judging them unworthy of that strong and serious application he was accustomed to bringing to more important matters.
1643-1662
Source: Works of Blaise Pascal