Blaise Pascal was a seventeenth-century French mathematician, physicist, and philosopher whose reflections on human nature, reason, faith, and infinity remain relevant today. In his Pensées, he explores both the greatness and the fragility of human beings.
1. “The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know.”
2. “Man is but a reed, the weakest thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed.”
3. “All our dignity consists in thought.”
4. “Let us strive to think well: this is the beginning of morality.”
5. “The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.”
6. “Humanity is nothing in comparison with infinity, and everything in comparison with nothing.”
7. “Human beings are equally incapable of seeing the nothingness from which they emerge and the infinity that surrounds them.”
8. “We never truly live in the present.”
9. “The past and the present are our means; the future alone is our end.”
10. “Thus we never live, but only hope to live.”
11. “All of humanity’s unhappiness comes from the inability to remain quietly in one room.”
12. “Diversion distracts us from thinking about our own condition.”
13. “We seek relief by struggling against obstacles, yet once they are overcome, rest becomes unbearable.”
14. “Curiosity is often only vanity: we want to know so that we may speak of what we know.”
15. “Vanity is so deeply rooted in the human heart that everyone wishes to be noticed.”
16. “If everyone knew what others said about them, there would not be four friends left in the world.”
17. “Justice without force is powerless; force without justice is tyrannical.”
18. “We must unite justice and force.”
19. “Custom is a second nature that destroys the first.”
20. “Imagination disposes of everything: it creates beauty, justice, and happiness in human eyes.”
21. “Imagination is the mistress of error and falsehood.”
22. “The last step of reason is to recognize that infinitely many things surpass it.”
23. “Two extremes: to exclude reason, and to admit nothing but reason.”
24. “Knowledge of God without knowledge of our own wretchedness gives rise to pride.”
25. “Knowledge of our own wretchedness without knowledge of God gives rise to despair.”
26. “The more light a person has, the more clearly they see both their greatness and their misery.”
27. “Man is neither angel nor beast; the misfortune is that whoever wishes to act the angel acts the beast.”
28. “We are filled with things that draw us beyond ourselves.”
29. “Faith is not simply a matter of proof, but also a way in which the heart turns toward truth.”
30. “Man infinitely transcends man.”
Author: Vasil Stoyanov