Quote

Since we cannot be universal and know all that is to be known of everything, we ought to know a little about everything. For it is far better to know something about everything than to know all about one thing. This universality is the best. If we can have both, still better but if we must choose, we ought to choose the former.

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
Something
Cannot
Universality
Still
Former
Best
Universal
Better
Choose
Little
Ought
Everything
Since
Must
Known
Thing
Knowledge

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The exterior must be joined to the interior to obtain anything from God, that is to say, we must kneel, pray with the lips, and soon, in order that proud man, who would not submit himself to God, may be now subject to the creature.
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The finite is annihilated in the presence of the infinite, and becomes a pure nothing. So our spirit before God, so our justice before divine justice.
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For nature is an image of Grace, and visible miracles are images of the invisible.
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Necessity, that great refuge and excuse for human frailty, breaks through all law and he is not to be accounted in fault whose crime is not the effect of choice, but force.
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Man lives between the infinitely large and the infinitely small.
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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 better.
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The stream is always purer at its source. [Fr., Les choses valent toujours mieux dans leur source.]
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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.
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If we let ourselves believe that man began with divine grace, that he forfeited this by sin, and that he can be redeemed only by divine grace through the crucified Christ, then we shall find peace of mind never granted to philosophers. He who cannot believe is cursed, for he reveals by his unbelief that God has not chosen to give him grace.
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It is the heart which perceives God and not the reason.
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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.
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Let man reawake and consider what he is compared with the reality of things regard himself lost in this remote corner of Nature and from the tiny cell where he lodges, to wit the Universe, weigh at their true worth earth, kingdoms, towns, himself. What is a man face to face with infinity?
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Thought makes the whole dignity of man therefore endeavor to think well, that is the only morality.
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It is certain that those who have the living faith in their hearts see at once that all existence is none other than the work of the God whom they adore. But for those in whom this light is extinguished, [if we were to show them our proofs of the existence of God] nothing is more calculated to arouse their contempt. . . .
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If there were only one religion, God would indeed be manifest.
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Law, without force, is impotent.
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The two principles of truth, reason and senses, are not only both not genuine, but are engaged in mutual deception. The senses deceive reason through false appearances, and the senses are disturbed by passions, which produce false impressions.
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Happiness can be found neither in ourselves nor in external things, but in God and in ourselves as united to him.
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Nothing is thoroughly approved but mediocrity. The majority has established this, and it fixes its fangs on whatever gets beyond it either way.
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At the centre of every human being is a God-shaped vacuum which can only be filled by Jesus Christ.
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