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Those who profess contempt for men, and put them on a level with beasts, yet wish to be admired and believed by men, and contradict themselves by their own feelings--their nature, which is stronger than all, convincing them of the greatness of man more forcibly than reason convinces them of his baseness.

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
Nature
Convince
Baseness
Reason
Believed
Contradict
Men
Greatness
Profess
Stronger
Beasts
Level
Admired
Levels
Convincing
Wish
Contempt
Convinces
Feelings
Beast
Forcibly

More quotes by Blaise Pascal

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Instinct teaches us to look for happiness outside ourselves.
Blaise Pascal
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Small minds are concerned with the extraordinary, great minds with the ordinary.
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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.
Blaise Pascal
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I maintain that, if everyone knew what others said about him, there would not be four friends in the world.
Blaise Pascal
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When I consider the small span of my life absorbed in the eternity of all time, or the small part of space which I can touch or see engulfed by the infinite immensity of spaces that I know not and that know me not, I am frightened and astonished to see myself here instead of there … now instead of then.
Blaise Pascal
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What use is it to us to hear it said of a man that he has thrown off the yoke that he does not believe there is a God to watch over his actions, that he reckons himself the sole master of his behavior, and that he does not intend to give an account of it to anyone but himself?
Blaise Pascal
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Brave deeds are wasted when hidden.
Blaise Pascal
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St. Augustine teaches us that there is in each man a Serpent, an Eve, and an Adam. Our senses and natural propensities are the Serpent the excitable desire is the Eve and reason is the Adam. Our nature tempts us perpetually criminal desire is often excited but sin is not completed till reason consents.
Blaise Pascal
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If man were happy, he would be the more so, the less he was diverted, like the saints and God.
Blaise Pascal
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We do not rest satisfied with the present.... So imprudent we are that we wander in the times which are not ours and do not thinkof the only one which belongs to us and so idle are we that we dream of those times which are no more and thoughtlessly overlook that which alone exists. For the present is generally painful to us.
Blaise Pascal
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Who knows if this other half of life where we think we're awake is not another sleep a little different from the first.
Blaise Pascal
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Cold words freeze people, and hot words scorch them, and bitter words make them bitter, and wrathful words make them wrathful. Kind words also produce their own image on men's souls and a beautiful image it is. They smooth, and quiet, and comfort the hearer.
Blaise Pascal
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The Christian religion teaches me two points-that there is a God whom men can know, and that their nature is so corrupt that they are unworthy of Him.
Blaise Pascal
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Reason's last step is to acknowledge that there are infinitely many things beyond it.
Blaise Pascal
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Everything that is written merely to please the author is worthless.
Blaise Pascal
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People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come in to the mind of others.
Blaise Pascal
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Human beings must be known to be loved but Divine beings must be loved to be known.
Blaise Pascal
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We think very little of time present we anticipate the future, as being too slow, and with a view to hasten it onward, we recall the past to stay it as too swiftly gone. We are so thoughtless, that we thus wander through the hours which are not here, regardless only of the moment that is actually our own.
Blaise Pascal
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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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Since we cannot know all that there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything.
Blaise Pascal