Quote

One has followed the other in an endless circle, for it is certain that as man's insight increases so he finds both wretchedness and greatness within himself. In a word man knows he is wretched. Thus he is wretched because he is so, but he is truly great because he knows it.

Blaise Pascal

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Certain
Insight
Great
Endless
Wretchedness
Men
Thus
Increases
Greatness
Wretched
Increase
Circle
Truly
Followed
Within
Finds
Word
Circles

More quotes by Blaise Pascal

Image
Happiness can be found neither in ourselves nor in external things, but in God and in ourselves as united to him.
Blaise Pascal
Image
All men naturally hate one another. I hold it a fact, that if men knew exactly what one says of the other, there would not be four friends in the world.
Blaise Pascal
Image
Apart from Jesus Christ, we do not know what is our life, nor our death, nor God, nor ourselves.
Blaise Pascal
Image
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.
Blaise Pascal
Image
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.
Blaise Pascal
Image
From whence comes it that a cripple in body does not irritate us, and that a crippled mind enrages us? It is because a cripple sees that we go right, and a distorted mind says that it is we who go astray. But for that we should have more pity and less rage.
Blaise Pascal
Image
It is the contest that delights us, and not the victory.
Blaise Pascal
Image
The greatest single distinguishing feature of the omnipotence of God is that our imagination gets lost thinking about it.
Blaise Pascal
Image
Habit is a second nature, which destroys the first.
Blaise Pascal
Image
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.
Blaise Pascal
Image
Passion cannot be beautiful without excess one either loves too much or not enough.
Blaise Pascal
Image
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
Image
If we do not know ourselves to be full of pride, ambition, lust, weakness, misery, and injustice, we are indeed blind. And if, knowing this, we do not desire deliverance, what can we say of a man...?
Blaise Pascal
Image
Do you wish people to speak well of you? Then do not speak at all yourself.
Blaise Pascal
Image
Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere.
Blaise Pascal
Image
By thought I embrace the universe.
Blaise Pascal
Image
The principles of pleasure are not firm and stable. They are different in all mankind, and variable in every particular with such a diversity that there is no man more different from another than from himself at different times.
Blaise Pascal
Image
What part of us feels pleasure? Is it our hand, our arm, our flesh, or our blood? It must obviously be something immaterial.
Blaise Pascal
Image
It is right that what is just should be obeyed. It is necessary that what is strongest should be obeyed.
Blaise Pascal
Image
Reason's last step is to acknowledge that there are infinitely many things beyond it.
Blaise Pascal