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Our true dignity consists — in thought. Thence we must derive our elevation, not from space or duration. Let us endeavor then to think well this is the principle of morals.

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
Wells
Endeavor
Well
Principle
Dignity
Thence
Must
Morality
Elevation
Think
Principles
Derive
Thinking
Space
Duration
True
Morals
Thought
Consists

More quotes by Blaise Pascal

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Love has reasons which reason cannot understand.
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Civil wars are the greatest of evils. They are inevitable, if we wish to reward merit, for all will say that they are meritorious.
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I would have far more fear of being mistaken, and of finding that the Christian religion was true, than of not being mistaken in believing it true.
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Death is easier to bear without thinking of it, than the thought of death without peril.
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Few men speak humbly of humility, chastely of chastity, skeptically of skepticism.
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You gave me health that I might serve you and so often I failed to use my good health in your service. Now you send me sickness in order to correct me Grant that, having ignored the things of spirit when my body was vigorous, I may now enjoy spiritual sweetness while my body groans with pain.
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To ridicule philosophy is truly philosophical. [Fr., Se moquer de la philosophie c'est vraiment philosophe.]
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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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No soul of high estate can take pleasure in slander. It betrays a weakness.
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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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Do they think that they have given us great pleasure by telling us that they hold our soul to be no more than wind or smoke, and saying it moreover in tones of pride and satisfaction? Is this then something to be said gaily? Is it not on the contrary something to be said sadly, as being the saddest thing in the world?
Blaise Pascal
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No one is offended at not seeing everything but one does not like to be mistaken, and that perhaps arises from the fact that man naturally cannot see everything, and that naturally he cannot err in the side he looks at, since the perceptions of our senses are always true.
Blaise Pascal
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Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him?
Blaise Pascal
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E? loquence quipersuade par douceur, non par empire, en tyran, non en roi. Eloquence should persuade gently, not by force or like a tyrant or king.
Blaise Pascal
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It is not only old and early impressions that deceive us the charms of novelty have the same power.
Blaise Pascal
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All the dignity of man consists in thought. Thought is therefore by its nature a wonderful and incomparable thing. It must have strange defects to be contemptible. But it has such, so that nothing is more ridiculous. How great it is in its nature! How vile it is in its defects! But what is this thought? How foolish it is!
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The last advance of reason is to recognize that it is surpassed by innumerable things it is feeble if it cannot realize that.
Blaise Pascal
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When a soldier complains of his hard life (or a labourer, etc.) try giving him nothing to do.
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Things have different qualities, and the soul different inclinations for nothing is simple which is presented to the soul, and the soul never presents itself simply to any object. Hence it comes that we weep and laugh at the same thing.
Blaise Pascal
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All great amusements are dangerous to the Christian life but among all those which the world has invented there is none more to be feared than the theater. It is a representation of the passions so natural and so delicate that it excites them and gives birth to them in our hearts, and, above all, to that of love.
Blaise Pascal