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Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for our miseries. Yet it is itself the greatest of our miseries.

Blaise Pascal

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Blaise Pascal
Age: 39 †
Born: 1623
Born: June 19
Died: 1662
Died: August 19
French Moralist
Mathematician
Philosopher
Physicist
Statistician
Theologian
Writer
Clarmont-Ferrand
Pascal
Louis de Montalte
Amos Dettonville
Dettonville
Paskal Blez
Consoles
Miseries
Console
Distraction
Misery
Greatest
Thing

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If magistrates had true justice, and if physicians had the true art of healing, they would have no occasion for square caps the majesty of these sciences would itself be venerable enough.
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Kind words produce their own image in men's souls and a beautiful image it is. They soothe and quiet and comfort the hearer. They shame him out of his sour, morose, unkind feelings. We have not yet begun to use kind words in such abundance as they ought to be used.
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True eloquence makes light of eloquence, true morality makes light of morality that is to say, the morality of the judgment, which has no rules, makes light of the morality of the intellect.... To make light of philosophy is to be a true philosopher.
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Discourses on humility are a source of pride in the vain and of humility in the humble. So those on scepticism cause believers to affirm. Few men speak humbly of humility, chastely of chastity, few doubtingly of scepticism.
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The state of man is inconstancy, ennui, anxiety.
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Law, without force, is impotent.
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How can anyone lose who chooses to become a Christian? If, when he dies, there turns out to be no God and his faith was in vain, he has lost nothing...If, however, there is a God and a heaven and a hell. then he has gained heaven and his skeptical friends have lost everything.
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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.
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The incredulous are the more credulous. They believe the miracles of Vespasian that they may not believe those of Moses. [Fr., Incredules les plus credules. Ils croient les miracle de Vespasien, pour ne pas croire ceux de Moise.]
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We conceal it from ourselves in vain - we must always love something. In those matters seemingly removed from love, the feeling is secretly to be found, and man cannot possibly live for a moment without it.
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Caesar was too old, it seems to me, to go off and amuse himself conquering the world. Such a pastime was all right for Augustus and Alexander they were young men, not easily held in check, but Caesar ought to have been more mature.
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We must know where to doubt, where to feel certain, where to submit. He who does not do so, understands not the force of reason.
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To speak freely of mathematics, I find it the highest exercise of the spirit but at the same time I know that it is so useless that I make little distinction between a man who is only a mathematician and a common artisan. Also, I call it the most beautiful profession in the world but it is only a profession.
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Passion cannot be beautiful without excess one either loves too much or not enough.
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Human life is thus only an endless illusion. Men deceive and flatter each other. No one speaks of us in our presence as he does when we are gone. Society is based on mutual hypocrisy.
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The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing. We feel it in a thousand things. I say that the heart naturally loves the Universal Being, and naturally loves itself and it gives itself to one or the other, and hardens itself against one or the other, as it chooses...it is the heart that feels God, not the reason this is faith.
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All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.
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Death is easier to bear without thinking of it, than the thought of death without peril.
Blaise Pascal
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(Man,) the glory and the scandal of the universe.
Blaise Pascal
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To have no time for philosophy is to be a true philosopher.
Blaise Pascal