Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascalwas a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Christian philosopher. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen. Pascal's earliest work was in the natural and applied sciences where he made important contributions to the study of fluids, and clarified the concepts of pressure and vacuum by generalising the work of Evangelista Torricelli. Pascal also wrote in defence of the scientific method...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth19 June 1623
CityClermont-Ferrand, France
CountryFrance
That a religion may be true, it must have knowledge of our nature.
We are fools to depend upon the society of our fellow-men. Wretched as we are, powerless as we are, they will not aid us; we shall die alone.
There would be too great darkness, if truth had not visible signs.
We have an idea of truth, invincible to all scepticism.
Plurality which is not reduced to unity is confusion; unity which does not depend on plurality is tyranny.
Meanings receive their dignity from words instead of giving it to them.
A trifle consoles us, for a trifle distresses us.
The weather and my mood have little connection. I have my foggy and my fine days within me; my prosperity or misfortune has little to do with the matter.
How vain painting is, exciting admiration by its resemblance to things of which we do not admire the originals.
However vast a man's spiritual resources, he is capable of but one great passion.
We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put something before us to prevent us seeing it.
Habit is a second nature that destroys the first. But what is nature? Why is habit not natural? I am very much afraid that nature itself is only a first habit, just as habit is a second nature.
All sorrow has its root in man's inability to sit quiet in a room by himself.
Our natures lie in motion, without which we die.