Quote

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.

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
Make
Common
Freely
Men
Speak
Distinction
Time
Spirit
Useless
World
Beautiful
Profession
Also
Mathematics
Littles
Exercise
Artisan
Find
Highest
Artisans
Little
Call
Mathematician

More quotes by 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 relations of all those things. And then we shall be very cautious.
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Men seek rest in a struggle against difficulties and when they have conquered these, rest becomes insufferable.
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It is not certain that everything is uncertain.
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Human beings must be known to be loved but Divine beings must be loved to be known.
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To be mistaken in believing that the Christian religion is true is no great loss to anyone but how dreadful to be mistaken in believing it to be false!
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The last thing we decide in writing a book is what to put first.
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Man's greatness is great in that he knows himself wretched. A tree does not know itself wretched. It is then being wretched to know oneself wretched but it is being great to know that one is wretched.
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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.
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Concupiscence and force are the source of all our actions concupiscence causes voluntary actions, force involuntary ones.
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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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The end point of rationality is to demonstrate the limits of rationality.
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How vain painting is-we admire the realistic depiction of objects which in their original state we don't admire at all.
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No man ever believes with a true and saving faith unless God inclines his heart and no man when God does incline his heart can refrain from believing.
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All mankind's unhappiness derives from one thing: his inability to know how to remain in repose in one room.
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Fuller believed human societies would soon rely mainly on renewable sources of energy, such as solar- and wind-derived electricity,. envisioned an age of universal education and sustenance of all humanity. The heart has reasons that reason does not understand.
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Il n'y a que deux sortes d'hommes: les uns justes, qui se croient pe cheurs les autres pe cheurs, qui se croient justes. There are only two types of people: the virtuous who believe themselves to be sinners and the sinners who believe themselves to be virtuous.
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We know truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart.
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What reason have atheists for saying that we cannot rise again? That what has never been, should be, or that what has been, should be again? Is it more difficult to come into being than to return to it.
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Making fun of philosophy is really philosophising.
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Nature confuses the skeptics and reason confutes the dogmatists
Blaise Pascal