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
The end point of rationality is to demonstrate the limits of rationality.
The charm of fame is so great that we like every object to which it is attached, even death.
Our soul is cast into a body, where it finds number, time, dimension. Thereupon it reasons, and calls this nature necessity, and can believe nothing else.
Reason commands us far more imperiously than a master; for in disobeying the one we are unfortunate, and in disobeying the other we are fools.
Earnestness is enthusiasm tempered by reason.
Being unable to cure death, wretchedness, and ignorance, men have decided, in order to be happy, not to think about such things.
We run heedlessly into the abyss after putting something in front of us to stop us from seeing it.
We are not satisfied with real life; we want to live some imaginary life in the eyes of other people and to seem different from what we actually are.
A man does not show his greatness by being at one extremity, but rather by touching both at once.
Continuous eloquence wearies. Grandeur must be abandoned to be appreciated. Continuity in everything is unpleasant. Cold is agreeable, that we may get warm.
By thought I embrace the universe.
Vanity is illustrated in the cause and effect of love, as in the case of Cleopatra.
Symmetry is what we see at a glance.
Religion is so great a thing that it is right that those who will not take the trouble to seek it if it be obscure, should be deprived of it.