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There was once in man a true happiness of which there now remain to him only the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present.

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
Trying
Mark
Obtain
Things
Empty
Absent
Men
Present
Surroundings
Help
Tries
Happiness
Fill
Helping
Vain
True
Seeking
Doe
Remain
Trace

More quotes by Blaise Pascal

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The strength of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts.
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All evil stems from this-that we do. Know how to handle your solitude.
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We are never in search of things, but always in search of the search.
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On the occasions when I have pondered over men's various activities, the dangers and worries they are exposed to at Court or at war, from which so many quarrels, passions, risky, often ill-conceived actions and so on are born, I have often said that man's unhappiness springs from one thing alone, his incapacity to stay quietly in one room.
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Education produces natural intuitions, and natural intuitions are erased by education.
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To ridicule philosophy is truly philosophical. [Fr., Se moquer de la philosophie c'est vraiment philosophe.]
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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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Thus so wretched is man that he would weary even without any cause for weariness... and so frivolous is he that, though full of a thousand reasons for weariness, the least thing, such as playing billiards or hitting a ball, is sufficient enough to amuse him.
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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.
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All men naturally hate each other. We have used concupiscence as best we can to make it serve the common good, but this is mere sham and a false image of charity, for essentially it is just hate.
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The parts of the universe ... all are connected with each other in such a way that I think it to be impossible to understand any one without the whole.
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Those who do not hate their own selfishness and regard themselves as more important than the rest of the world are blind because the truth lies elsewhere
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And is it not obvious that, just as it is a crime to disturb the peace when truth reigns, it is also a crime to remain at peace when the truth is being destroyed?
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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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Lust is the source of all our actions, and humanity.
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Rivers are roads that move and carry us whither we wish to go. [Fr., Les rivieres sont des chemins qui marchant et qui portent ou l'on veut aller.]
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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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Unless we love the truth we cannot know it.
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Reason's last step is to acknowledge that there are infinitely many things beyond it.
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All of our miseries prove our greatness. They are the miseries of a dethroned monarch.
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